


a primer for the small weird loves

by babyloveparkner



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Learning to accept yourself, M/M, Peter Parker Whump, Post Civil War, Smut, Tony Stark Acting as Harley Keener's Parental Figure, Whump, a small town version of conversion therapy, but i'll add more if or when i think of them, conversion therapy, i cant think of other tags to add, like REALLY soft smut ok, poetry and gay shit, poetry used for gay shit, self hatred, soft smut, thats why each chapter took so long to update, writing this drained me emotionally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:14:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22274635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babyloveparkner/pseuds/babyloveparkner
Summary: With each breath, each slow inhale, each heavy exhale, Harley tries to empty his brain, grips his pen and brings it down to the page and lets it hover there, focuses on the feeling of his heart, until it’s all he can feel, all he can hear, all he can really comprehend. His heart is making noise, and it’s his job to capture the sound.He doesn’t think. Somehow, finally,he doesn’t think.He just writes.-or: harley runs from a homophobic town and finds solace in poetry and peter parker
Relationships: Harley Keener & Peter Parker, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 40
Kudos: 367





	1. i fled to the city with so much discounted

**Author's Note:**

> i was going to post this as a one shot, but it's taking longer for me to finish than anticipated and i already posted a teaser on tumblr, like, over a month ago, so i figured splitting it into multiple parts would be fine.
> 
> IMPORTANT INFORMATION!
> 
> this will talk about some really deep, fucked up stuff. if you're one of those people who doesn't read tags or trigger warning to avoid spoilers (i'm the same way, tbh, so i get you), then skip this because **i am going to list some trigger warning that will also provide some small spoilers**
> 
> -homophobia (rose hill is small and homophobic and very, very catholic)  
> -internalized homophobia (harley is going to struggle with how he feels)  
> -conversion therapy (nothing too extreme - the pastor of a local church basically has rooms for kids who need to be "fixed" and parents pay the pastor to "fix" their kids. it is implied that it could have gotten a lot worse if harley hadn't run away, but as it is, it's mostly just the pastor telling harley that it's a sin to be gay, etc etc etc. nothing physical.)  
> -self deprecating thoughts  
> -mild description of injury (peter is spider-man and he gets hurt ok)  
> -there will be eventual smut  
> -i usually like harley’s mom being a good parent, but for the sake of this story, she isn’t all that great and is the one who has him sent to the church for the conversion therapy
> 
> i can't think of anything else to add? but if anyone sees anything they think i should add a warning for then please let me know and i will add it for sure!
> 
> chapter titles come from hozier songs. chapter one is from shrike.

He is thirteen years old and he finds a poem online.

Looking back on it, he doesn’t think he was searching for the poem, doesn’t think he ever really intended to find it, but he’s scrolling through his third attempt at a Tumblr account because he always ends up deleting them in shame and he sees the name Richard Siken and something makes him stop scrolling. The poem is called A Primer for the Small Weird Loves. Harley knows nothing about poetry. The only poems he’s ever read are the ones he _has_ to read for his literature classes, and he understands the ideas of comprehension and hidden meaning and all the things he was taught about interpreting poetry, but he’s never had to apply it outside of class. The name of the poem intrigues him. He thinks, maybe foolishly, that he can just take what he’s learned and see if he can apply it outside of school.

The poem starts like this:

_1_

_The blond boy in the red trunks is holding your head underwater_

_because he is trying to kill you,_

_and you deserve it, you do, and you know this,_

_and you are ready to die in this swimming pool_

_because you wanted to_

and Harley stops reading, because the next words make something ache in his chest, his gut twisting ‘round an invisible knife that burns and makes him want to scream. This is not what he thought the poem was about. This is not what he wanted it to be about. He stares at the words _wanted to_ and doesn’t dare let his eyes continue, and he sits there for what feels like hours but what must only be minutes, before bookmarking the page on his phone and closing out of it entirely. He doesn’t know why he bookmarks it until three weeks later, when he locks himself in a bathroom stall at school with a split lip and a bloody nose because a high school kid decided to push him down and punch him, calling him things that he doesn’t want to think about, doesn’t want to face. Something in him begs to continue the poem he never finished reading, and he goes to his bookmarks, clicks the link, and blinks away tears.

_because you wanted to touch his hands and lips and this means_

_your life is over anyway._

_You’re in the eighth grade. You know these things._

_You know how to ride a dirt bike, and you know how to do_

_long division,_

_and you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless_

_he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you_

_didn’t do,_

_because you are weak and hollow and it doesn’t matter anymore._

The poem does not end there, but Harley reads no further. He’s crying too hard, teeth digging into the meat of his palm to muffle the noise, to be able to make much sense of the words anyway.

It isn’t until Harley is fifteen that he looks the poem up again, his old phone a shatter screened mess thrown in a dumpster back in Tennessee, left behind when he packed his bags and ran to New York, to a man with tired eyes and a fatherly smile that replaces the barely-there memory of the dad that left him. Tony doesn’t ask questions when Harley pleads for a room, or an apartment, or even just a decent homeless shelter that might take pity on him being so young. All he does is open the door and usher Harley inside, sporting a black eye and rubbing at his left arm with a little frown as he tells Harley that there’s a room just down the hall from his own that’s up for grabs if he wants it. Harley doesn’t hug him, even though he wants to—it doesn’t matter if he looks at Tony and sees a father, because the church has engrained it in his head to avoid the touch of any male—but he does thank him over and over again, until his gratitude is unquestionable and his lungs beg for even a semi steady breath.

In this room, there’s not much more than a luxurious bed, a simple, modern looking dresser, a door leading to an ensuite bathroom, and a walk in closet that’s the size of Harley’s old room in Tennessee. All Harley has is a duffle and a backpack and whatever it is he’s wearing, and he doesn’t feel like unpacking anything right now, so he just makes his way into the bathroom, finds it stocked with fancy shampoo and conditioner and body wash, and he takes a long shower, scrubs at his skin until it stings and his mind is empty, and when he comes out in a pair of ratty sweatpants and a random plain black shirt that he digs from his duffle, there’s a brand new Stark phone sitting on top of the nightstand by the bed. No note is with it, nothing to provide any explanation, but he picks it up and turns it on and finds that it’s mostly set up already, not including a password and everything to personalize it.

Within ten minutes, he has the device completely set up, and no sooner than he finishes that does he get a text from Tony telling him that the phone is already connected to his main bank account, so Harley can feel free to use the device to order things, buy movies, whatever the hell he wants, and that there’s no need to ask before he does. Harley sets up a Spotify Premium account and does absolutely nothing else because the guilt of that alone is enough to make him feel queasy.

“You already fit right in,” Tony tells him when he finds Harley eating a bowl of ice cream at three in the morning, making his way into the kitchen on uneven footing and instantly heading to the coffee machine. It looks like he’s struggling to stay conscious, let alone keep walking. “What’s got you out of bed so late, kiddo?”

Harley takes a bite of his ice cream and says, “I don’t sleep a lot.” And it’s true, he doesn’t, because he has dreams he shouldn’t have and if he stays awake long enough to crash, he usually doesn’t dream at all. He takes in Tony’s tired features and the black eye and the way he’s once again rubbing at his left arm while he waits for the coffee to brew. “What happened to you? Someone bullying Iron Man now?”

“More like Iron Man got his ass beat by Captain America and his little assassin friend,” Tony says, tone a bit bitter and self-deprecating as he tries for a weird little smile. “Jokes on Cap, though. He broke up the Avengers and half the team are wanted fugitives now and Rhodey’s fucking paralyzed from the waist down, but I’m working on leg braces so he can walk again and I found an annoying little arachnid kid that I have to keep safe, so who really won, huh?”

“Arachnid kid?” Harley repeats, frowning. “What does that mean?”

The coffee machine beeps. Tony pours himself a large mug and waves a dismissive hand through the air, saying, “He’s a… Spider… Peter… whatever. You’ll probably meet him. I think. I don’t know.”

With that, he leaves the kitchen, steaming mug of coffee in hand, leaving Harley alone at the counter with his melting ice cream and the curious thought of why Tony hasn’t bothered to ask why Harley is here. He shoves the thought away, knows better than to question the few good happenings in his life, and when he goes to lay down—not to sleep, _never_ to sleep—he thinks of the last time someone opened their doors so easily for him, remembers the pastor giving him a pitying smile and the way his mother nodded at him when he looked back at her, terrified and silently pleading with her to let him go home.

He told the pastor about the poem and the way his heart fluttered when he met the eyes of pretty boys from across the classroom and the pastor clicked his tongue and said that it’s not right, it’s not normal. When it became clear that Harley would never be able to convince the pastor that the butterflies feel right, he decided to play along, to answer how he should, to lie through his bloodied teeth and put bandaids on his knuckles when he punched the walls in the dead of night because he was so angry.

This is not like the church. When Harley said prayers he didn’t mean and murmured _thank you, father,_ he did not mean _dad._ Tony opens the doors, gives him a room, and does not pry. Father, in regard to the pastor, is not the same as father, in regard to Tony Stark. One is a holy man that cures people of sinful things. The other has sinned and grown and is accepting, is kind. Harley trusts Tony Stark. Harley ran away from the pastor and Rose Hill and the mother who told him he isn’t allowed to be queer.

He reads the next part of the poem, doesn’t need to reread the first because the words have been burned into his head since he was thirteen years old. It goes like this:

_2_

_A dark-haired man in a rented bungalow is licking the whiskey_

_from the back of your wrist._

_He feels nothing,_

_keeps a knife in his pocket,_

_peels an apple right in front of you_

_while you tramp around a mustard-colored room_

_in your underwear_

_drinking Dutch beer from a green bottle._

_After everything that was going to happen has happened_

_you ask only for the cab fare home_

_and realize you should have asked for more_

_because he couldn't care less, either way._

He doesn’t read the rest of it and deletes the poem from his browser history on his phone, and he wonders why he feels like the ice cream in his stomach is threatening to come back up.

Not long after, he hears more about the apparent arachnid kid. Harley listens as Tony rants relentlessly about the recklessness of this teenage hero, is sitting on the couch with his feet tucked beneath him when the man storms in holding a plastic bag containing a bright red suit that Harley has only seen glimpses of on the local news. Happy follows after him, murmurs something about how maybe Tony might have gone too far, and witnesses the way Tony explodes with, “He could have fucking died!”

There’s a strange lapse in time where Harley merely exists in the penthouse of the Stark Tower, where Tony hardly leaves the lab and grumbles under his breath whenever he does, where Happy visits Harley a lot and assures him that it’s nothing personal, that Tony is just too stubborn to admit that he cares about the spider kid and knows he should have handled the situation differently. And then there’s an alert from Friday, late one night, saying that the plane of Avengers crap that’s being sent to the compound — “I want it away from me,” Tony tells Harley, when he finds the time to ask. “I don’t want it anywhere near my home.” — has crashed on the beach, and Tony looks more annoyed than anything else, until Friday mentions the name _Mister Parker_ , and then Tony looks pale as a sheet and is rushing to the balcony, a suit already waiting for him there by the time he makes it outside. Harley doesn’t have the time to ask where he’s going before he’s taking off, and he simply sits on the couch and watches videos on his phone until Friday tells him that Tony will be landing on the balcony again in approximately two minutes.

Spider kid is named Peter Parker, and he looks like a wreck when Harley first meets him, leaning heavily against the Iron Man suit, the metal warping under the strength of his shaking fingers. There’s blood caked into his clothes and drying against his skin but he still smiles at Harley and says a breathless little, “Hey, I’m Peter,” and his smile doesn’t even falter when he presses his other hand into his side and he winces in pain. The hoodie he’s wearing has various holes and burns in it and the skin peeking out looks charred and sliced and horribly painful, and all Harley can do is stare with a slightly dropped jaw as this kid, who must be Harley’s age, maybe a few months younger, struggles to stay on his feet and still attempts to chirpily greet him, even as he’s quite literally bleeding out on the carpet.

“Is Cho in the building?” Tony asks, head tilted up to the ceiling, the mask of his suit pulling back to reveal the way his eyes are squinted and his features are scrunched up in concern. Harley is still looking at Peter and he hears the pastor in his head, the way the man’s voice dripped with some kind of twisted worry, saying odd and hurtful things, the kind of things Harley didn’t want to listen to.

“It’s unnatural,” the pastor had said, lowered tone and narrowed eyes and a sickly smile pulling at his chapped lips. There were four days until Harley’s fifteen birthday and he was sitting stock still, head bowed, hands clasped in his lap because he just wanted to see his sister and try to convince his mother that the church wasn’t helping, that he just wanted to go home and then he’d be as normal as she wanted so long as he never had to see the pastor again. “You’re sick. Do you understand that, Harley? The way you look at boys, the way you feel about them, it’s an abomination. You’re in need of being saved.”

Harley remembers the indents left in his palms from digging his fingernails so deeply into his skin lasting for hours, nearly breaking the skin, but he had managed to keep his voice steady as he stated his agreement with everything the pastor said. And he thinks of that now, as he looks at Peter Parker, the heavy look in his eyes and the smile still pulled up on bloodied lips and the dirt and the grime and somehow, in some unnatural— _wrong, sick, abomination_ —way, he’s absolutely beautiful despite it all. Harley’s tongue feels knotted and non-cooperative in his mouth, but he manages to spit out some kind of response, says a simple, “I’m, uh—I’m—I’m Harley,” before Tony is leading Peter towards the elevator upon being informed by Friday that Helen Cho is in the Med Bay and prepared for operation.

“Nice t’meet you,” Peter sort of slurs out over his shoulder, beams at Harley as his eyes go half lidded and he practically collapses, legs giving out but Tony keeping him up with the arm wrapped around his waist. As the doors slide open and they step inside, Harley hears Peter murmur, “Seems nice, Mis’er S’ark.”

“He’s very nice,” Tony agrees, that tinge of concern rolled into each syllable of every word. There’s a little trail of dripped blood following them, staining carpet and wooden floor, oozing from wounds that are hidden under the torn up clothes hanging loosely off of Peter’s pale, shaking frame. “Maybe you can talk to him some more when you’re all healed up, huh? I’m sure he’d be okay with that.”

The doors start to slide shut, but Harley catches the quiet _mhm_ that Peter hums out, and he keeps staring at the elevator for a long moment after they’ve gone, a twist in his gut that makes him feel sick and uncomfortable and flushed and he tries to tell himself that the reason he came to New York is because he hates feeling ashamed but the shame has been carved into his head and seared into his skin and it claws up his throat no matter how hard he tries to swallow it back down. He feels horribly dizzy and suddenly he’s rushing to the bathroom because whatever’s in his stomach is crawling up with very little warning, and he barely has time to skid to his knees against the tiled floor before the half assed sandwich he had for dinner is spilling past his lips and splashing into the toilet bowl.

Peter Parker is being stitched up three floors down, unconscious and miraculously alive, even after being trapped under slabs of concrete and crashing a plane into the beach and being slammed against the sand with metal talons digging in his chest over and over again, and Harley Keener is throwing up because he looked a pretty boy in the eyes and felt his heart flutter and he tells himself that there’s nothing wrong with that but his mother and the pastor both told him it’s a sickness and now it’s making him sick, and something about that means something significant, in a way words can’t explain.

After, when there’s nothing left for Harley to puke, when Peter’s healing has finally kicked in, Harley uses shaky hands to pull out his phone and look up that poem again, no matter how much something in his head tells him not to do it, no matter the fact that his mouth tastes of bile and stomach acid. He pushes those things away, doesn’t focus on them, and reads the words on the screen.

_3_

_The man on top of you is teaching you how to hate, see you_

_as a piece of real estate,_

_just another fallow field lying underneath him_

_like a sacrifice._

_He's turning your back into a table so he doesn't have to_

_eat off the floor, so he can get comfortable,_

_pressing against you until he fits, until he's made a place for himself_

_inside you_

_The clock ticks from five to six. Kissing degenerates into biting._

_So you get a kidney punch, a little blood in your urine._

_It isn't over yet, it's just begun._

The phone clatters to the tile and he dry heaves as something within him ruthlessly twists.

He sees Peter Parker again two days later, laying on the sofa when Harley leaves his room around six in the morning, unable to make himself lay restlessly in bed any longer. For a long moment, Harley just stops and looks, that queasy feeling in his stomach again, but he swallows roughly and pushes it down and looks harder, takes in the way that Peter’s knees are drawn up to his chest, a blanket draped over his shoulders and his head leaning against the arm rest as he stares at the TV, whatever’s playing reflecting in his inviting brown eyes. It seems like he doesn’t realize someone else is there, but when Harley is about to turn on his heel and walk away, heart thudding in his chest, Peter speaks up, voice merely a croak when he says, “You can come sit down, y’know. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“Um.” Harley looks over his shoulder, down the hall and towards the door of the room that he’s able to call his own, thinks of returning to his bed and trying to sleep. He thinks of harsh words and how simply seeing Peter Parker smile at him had been enough to make him sick and maybe he should stay away until he’s got a handle of his own shame, but then he looks back over to the living room and Peter is looking at him with wide yet tired eyes and a hopeful look on his face and Harley nods before realizing he’s doing it, stepping forward on shaking knees as he murmurs, “Yeah, okay.”

It’s an infatuation built at first glance, a feeling of being wrong as he settles on to the opposite side of the couch, slouches down with hunched shoulders and a ducked head and looks resolutely at the screen, absolutely zero recollection or recognition clicking in his head at what he sees. Apparently, seeing or sensing the uncertainty, Peter tells him, “You don’t have to sit if you don’t want to, though.”

“No, it’s—” Harley stops, clears his throat when his voice sort of cracks, tries for some kind of smile even as he can’t meet Peter’s eyes and shakes his head sheepishly. “It’s fine. I’m just… yeah. It’s fine.” Then, because he seriously has no idea what is on the TV right now, and because he’s so quietly intrigued by the boy that he’s already heard so much about, the arachnid kid that Tony has been telling him of since he showed up two months ago, he sinks his teeth into his lower lip and tries to sound like a normal person when he asks, “So, you’re, um… you’re Spider-Man, then? I’ve seen you, on the news, sometimes.”

Peter is looking at the screen and his pulled up hoodie hides most of his face but he’s still sporting a small little smile when he answers, “I guess there’s no point in denying it when you saw me the other night, so, yeah, that’s me. And the news doesn’t always say the nicest stuff, so hopefully you don’t think I’m, like, some crazy secret murderer or whatever crazy stuff they say about me sometimes.”

Again, Harley shakes his head, but now he does it with slightly wide eyes and a pursed lipped frown, telling Peter, “No, I don’t think—I mean, the stations I watch don’t say stuff like that, and Tony talks about you, so I don’t—I know you’re not—”

“Thanks,” Peter interrupts, head fully turned to face Harley with a little grin on his face.

“The cuts are gone,” Harley says, blinking owlishly in mild surprise. At the look of confusion that crosses Peter’s features, Harley quickly jumps to explain, “I mean, the—when you came in, you had a bunch of cuts and bruises and stuff on your face, but they’re—they’re already gone.”

Silently, he curses himself for bringing it up, afraid that it sounds too observant to be casual, terrified that it’ll give away just how intently his eyes had been drawn in the moment he looked at Peter, so beyond frightened that Peter will be disgusted and tell Tony and Harley will be sent back home to be fixed by the pastor. Part of him knows that Tony wouldn’t do that, trusts Tony not to do that, but the fear persists anyway. He presses his trembling hands between his knees to conceal how bad they’re shaking and averts his eyes to the far wall, suppresses the urge to flinch away when Peter mumbles a quiet little, “Oh, um… well, I have, uh—part of the Spider-Man thing, it gave me fast healing, so all the little stuff is already gone. The bigger stuff isn’t really, not yet, which is why I’m still, um—still at the tower, and not at home yet, but it’s good enough that Doctor Cho said I could leave the Med Bay, which is—which is good.”

With a nod, Harley softly agrees with, “Yeah, that’s good.”

“What are, um…” Peter trails off, and when Harley glances at him, he sees that Peter is looking down at his own lap with a little frown, brows knitted together in some kind of thought. Harley looks away again quickly, feels a residual fear at the idea of what his brain may conjure up, where it may go, if he continues to look. “I, uh… I don’t really know—I mean, Mr. Stark has mentioned you a few times, but he never said, like, who, exactly, you are, you know? I’m kind of just assuming you’re his son or something, but you don’t look a whole lot like him and I think he said your last name is, um… shit, I don’t remember what it was, but I know it started with a K, and, like, maybe you’re adopted or something, but, um… I don’t know. I guess I’m just kind of curious about who you are, if that makes sense?”

“I’m not Tony’s son,” Harley says first, though he silently wishes he was, because maybe things would have been different, would have been better, if Tony Stark was his father growing up. “I’m just some kid that helped him out a few years ago, after the battle of New York, when the Mandarin stuff was happening, you know? And he’s helping me out now by giving me a place to stay. That’s all it is.”

Peter doesn’t seem one hundred percent sure if he believes that, but he just slowly nods, looks at Harley with a curious sort of expression before asking, “Where are you from?”

 _A hellscape,_ Harley thinks bitterly. “Tennessee. A small town that you’ve probably never heard of. You?”

“Queens,” Peter answers. “Why’d you come to New York? Is your family here, too?”

An image filters through Harley’s mind of Darcy Keener and her motherly smile and the smell of her homemade blackberry pie, of his lovely baby sister Emma and how she rolls her eyes when he tells her jokes, and he thinks of how he had to sneak in to her room to tell her goodbye after running from the church and breaking in to his own house to pack his duffle and his backpack. Slowly, he shakes his head. “No, they… it’s kind of… kind of complicated. And they’re still in Tennessee. I came here to get away.”

“Away from what?” Peter asks, voice hushed.

“I don’t know,” Harley murmurs, brows furrowed and fingernails digging in to his palms. “Just… stuff. It’s better here, I guess.” Safer, he wants to add. Free from the talk of sins and being damned and how something as simple as the way he feels is apparently, inherently, wrong.

Peter hums a bit, looks back at the TV but doesn’t appear to really be watching it, so Harley looks even though he isn’t watching, either, until a few moments later, when Peter asks, “You good at building shit?”

Harley’s eyes flicker to Peter suddenly, uncertainly, and Peter offers him a wide, toothy grin.

An hour later, Tony finds them in his lab, Peter talking Harley through how he came up with the design for his web shooters and the formula for the webbing itself, leaning close to him to point at the sketches and writing he has jotted on a piece of paper. Harley is feeling on the brink of panicking with how close Peter is but doesn’t know how to put space between them in a way that won’t draw attention to it, finds the perfect reason when the doors open and Tony walks in, sounding both fond and amused when he sighs and says, “My nerdy little teenagers are bonding. The world’s not going to implode now, is it?”

“Of course it is,” Harley tries to quip, leans back in his seat and takes a deep breath for his begging lungs, trying to calm his racing heart and instinctively telling himself that pretty boys shouldn’t make him nervous, that he shouldn’t find boys pretty in the first place, swallows back that shame that tastes like copper on the back of his tongue. “World domination is clearly inevitable.”

The chiming little laugh that Peter lets out makes Harley feel a little bit dizzy, not used to being so close to the pretty boys that he wasn’t allowed to look at back home, but he tries to play it off as nothing when Tony quirks a brow at him. Either he does a good job at it or Tony chooses not to point it out, instead making his way over and leaning between them, giving Harley the chance to put even more space between him and Peter, until he isn’t feeling anxious over the feeling of their knees brushing together every few minutes or so, and he asks, “What are you two working on, then?”

“I’m showing him the web shooters,” Peter explains chirpily, spins the paper a bit to show Tony. “Specifically, I’m showing him how I came up with the design and the formula, and I was just about to tell him about my new ideas, too, ‘cause he said he can build stuff and I thought he might wanna see it or give some kind of input or—or, maybe, like, help me build them, if he wanted to, or something. See?”

“Woah.” Tony grabs the paper, lifts it a bit to squint at the scribbled out formula on the bottom of the page—not the one for Peter’s current webbing, no, but an idea for a new kind of webbing, one that might be stronger, better for the heavy lifting. “What’s this for, kid? Fighting Godzilla?”

Peter shrugs, but Harley can see from where he sits that Peter has averted his gaze to the ground and seems some kind of mix between saddened and sheepish, and Harley thinks, oh so suddenly, that he’d rather be nervous from a pretty boy’s smile than have to see the kind of subtle pain etched into Peter’s features as he tries for a smile and says, “I was thinking I could use it for the big stuff, like… like holding a ferry together. If I get it right, it should be able to help me with things too much for just my strength.”

And it’s a bit harsh, the way Harley remembers the news stations showing footage of Spider-Man trying to stop a weapons deal, the shaky recordings from inside the ferry as the boat split in half and the echoing scream of a teenage hero trying to keep the thing from falling completely apart, and he thinks of the blood and the dirt and the grime on Peter’s face when he stumbled through the living room and the way Tony’s voice shook when he yelled, _“He could have fucking died!”_ at Happy while Harley watched.

He thinks he gets it, a little bit. Spider-Man could kill Peter Parker. It’s dangerous.

So was running away to New York, but Peter has Tony, and Harley kind of has Tony, too, but he hasn’t relied on Tony, hasn’t opened up to Tony, hasn’t said a damn word about why he’s here. It’s time for that to change, time for him to open up his concaved chest and show the broken parts within and hope that someone—Tony, maybe Happy, anybody—can help him start to push the pieces together again.

“Mama made me go to the church,” he says, with no warning, no preamble, nothing to lead up to it. With his feet tucked beneath him and a plate of cold pizza in his lap that he can’t be bothered trying to stomach, he forces it out, says the sharp words that slice him up inside. Tony is already looking at him in mild alarm, the movie on the TV muted, and Harley swallows back bile before he continues with, “It was… I mean, in a way, I guess it was my fault. I should’ve known she wouldn’t be okay with it, not after all the times she ranted about… about people like me, y’know? But I hoped it would be different, ‘cause I’m her son, and she’s supposed to love me for who I am, so I… I told her, after school one day. She was in the kitchen makin’ dinner and I marched on in and I told her, I said—I said, Mama, I’m gay.”

Just breathing those last two words out is enough to make him feel dizzy with fear and sickness and a feeling of doing something wrong. Tony pushes his plate onto the coffee table and moves just a little bit closer, something in his eyes that Harley can’t see because he refuses to look away from the loose threads sticking out on the knees of his ratty pajama pants.

“She didn’t say anything, not for a while,” Harley whispers. “And when she did, she—she was crying, and she was begging me to say I wasn’t telling the truth, and I—I just wanted her to tell me she loved me, but when she realized I was bein’ honest, she told me to pack a bag. She didn’t even let me wait until Emma got home from her friend’s house, didn’t let me talk to her, just—just drove me to the church on the edge of town and gave the pastor a hundred dollars and told him to fix me. And then she left me there, just like that, didn’t even look back when she was walkin’ away. I didn’t… didn’t see her for two weeks.”

“Harley…”

There’s an edge to Tony’s voice that makes Harley want to run and hide, but he doesn’t, just clamps his teeth down on his wobbly lower lip until he doesn’t feel like he’s about to cry, and then he goes on. “At first, it was just… it was weird, but it wasn’t bad. There were some rooms in the back of the church, ones with beds, but no one else stayed back there other than me. He said it was ‘cause all the other kids were already fixed and got to go home, were out in town living their normal lives, as God intended. I asked ‘im why I was there, and he said it was ‘cause my mama can’t have a homosexual for a son. Every day, he sat me down and he tried to talk me through my—my feelings, and explained to me that it was wrong, that it was an abomination, to look at boys and to—to like them, the way I did. The way I do. And then Mama came by to see me, told me that I just had to keep trying, gave the pastor another hundred dollars, and left again, telling me that she was so proud and that she just wanted me to be—to be normal again.”

He doesn’t realize his breathing has gone a bit shallow or that tears have started trickling down his blotchy red cheeks until a comforting hand settles on his shoulder and Tony’s calm voice tells him, “Take a breath, kid. Give yourself a minute, okay? It’s alright, Harley. You’re safe here.”

_You’re safe here. You’re safe here. You’re safe here._

_It’s alright, Harley. You’re safe here._

“I just—” Harley, sucks in a sharp, sudden breath that stabs at his lungs and blinks away the tears burning at the back of his eyes. “I know—I—I couldn’t stay there, I couldn’t do it, ‘cause no matter how much I said what I knew he wanted to hear, no matter how hard I tried—I tried to act normal, so I could go home and see Mama and my sister, he—he knew, somehow, that I was lying, and I had a feeling that—that if I stayed any longer, it was—he was gonna—gonna do something, and I couldn’t—and—and I hoped that, maybe, maybe you could—maybe you’d let me stay here, or do something to help, ‘cause I always feel accepted with you, but I couldn’t—I was so scared to tell you why I ran away, and you never asked, so I just let it—I didn’t—I never said anything and I’m so scared that you’ll send me back and—and—”

“Let’s get one thing clear, kid,” Tony tells him, gentle and caring but still set and firm. “I’ll never send you away, alright? And especially not for something like that. I mean it when I say you’re safe here. Your mom… Christ, what she did, that isn’t okay, and you’ll never have to go back there unless you want to. I’ve been working with Pepper and my lawyers since you got here to try and draw up some kind of guardianship papers because I knew you wouldn’t have come here unless something happened. All I need is a good reason to get the courts to let me take you in. She’ll never be able to do that shit again.”

Harley squeezes his eyes shut and curls his shaking hands into fists. “You promise?”

The hand on Harley’s shoulder carefully pulls him in for a gentle side hug, gives plenty of time for Harley to pull away. He doesn’t. “I promise. This can be home for as long as you want it to be. Give me two days and I’ll have the legal side of it all figured out, and no one will be able to force you to go anywhere.”

“Okay,” Harley murmurs, nodding against Tony’s shoulder and trying to pretend he isn’t crying. “Okay.”

That night, in the safety _(you’re safe here, you’re safe here, you’re safe here)_ of his _(safe, safe, safe)_ room, he pulled out a ratty notebook that he had been using for English back at his school in Rose Hill, notes that he should make sure to bring up the topic of school when Tony has the whole guardianship thing figured out, and he rips out all the used pages, leaves the notebook even more crumpled and used but completely blank on the inside. Then, plucking a pen from the desk in his room that he hasn’t properly used quite yet, he scribbles down the first three parts of the poem by memory alone, looks it up to double check he wrote it down right, and then he stops, freezes, scrolls down to read part four.

_4_

_Says to himself_

_The boy's no good. The boy is just no good._

_but he takes you in his arms and pushes your flesh around_

_to see if you could ever be ugly to him._

_You, the now familiar whipping boy, but you're beautiful,_

_he can feel the dogs licking his heart._

_Who gets the whip and who gets the hoops of flame?_

_He hits you and he hits you and he hits you._

_Desire driving his hands right into your body._

_Hush, my sweet. These tornadoes are for you._

_You wanted to think of yourself as someone who did these kinds of things._

_You wanted to be in love_

_and he happened to get in the way._

Something hurts, Harley realizes, staring at those words with a creased brow and some kind of tremble to his breathing. This can’t be it, can it? The poem, it doesn’t really… it doesn’t feel _promising,_ it feels _anxious._ It feels like the stutter of Harley’s heart in his chest and the way his fingers trembled when Peter leaned too close and he could feel breath brushing hot against his skin while Peter explained the mechanics of his web shooters because Harley was a bit too stuck in his nervous fear to tell him that he had figured out how they worked the second Peter made the sketch. Harley doesn’t want more anxiety.

He wants to feel some kind of hope, after crying his eyes out on the shoulder of the man who’s more of a parent to him than either of his ever had been, after blubbering about how Peter’s smile made Harley feel sick to his stomach because a pretty boy is the kind of boy he was told to fear and Tony softly assured him that there’s nothing wrong with being fifteen years old and having a crush on someone you find pretty. There’s a desperate bubbling in the center of the chest for something that makes him feel hope, in the same way he felt hope when Tony told him that having a crush on a pretty person is the most normal thing in the world, even if his crush is on a pretty boy. Craving that reassurance, he keeps reading.

_5_

_The green-eyed boy in the powder-blue t-shirt standing_

_next to you in the supermarket recoils as if hit,_

_repeatedly, by a lot of men, as if he has a history of it._

_This is not your problem._

_You have your own body to deal with._

_The lamp by the bed is broken._

_You are feeling things he's no longer in touch with._

_And everyone is speaking softly,_

_so as not to wake one another._

_The wind knocks the heads of the flowers together._

_Steam rises from every cup at every table at once._

_Things happen all the time, things happen every minute_

_that have nothing to do with us._

_6_

_So you say you want a deathbed scene, the knowledge that comes_

_before knowledge,_

_and you want it dirty._

_And no one can ever figure out what you want,_

_and you won't tell them,_

_and you realize the one person in the world who loves you_

_isn't the one you thought it would be,_

_and you don't trust him to love you in a way_

_you would enjoy._

_And the boy who loves you the wrong way is filthy._

_And the boy who loves you the wrong way keeps weakening._

_You thought if you handed over your body_

_he'd do something interesting._

_7_

_The stranger says there are no more couches and he will have to_

_sleep in your bed. You try to warn him, you tell him_

_you will want to get inside him, and ruin him,_

_but he doesn't listen._

_You do this, you do. You take the things you love_

_and tear them apart_

_or you pin them down with your body and pretend they're yours._

_So, you kiss him, and he doesn't move, he doesn't_

_pull away, and you keep on kissing him. And he hasn't moved,_

_he's frozen, and you've kissed him, and he'll never_

_forgive you, and maybe now he'll leave you alone._

And there’s no more to read when Harley tries to keep scrolling down.

He angrily scribbles the rest of the poem in his notebook and rips the pages out and shoves them into the top drawer of his desk to never be seen again, can’t bring himself to throw it away because something within him tells him he shouldn’t, but part of him demands to burn the pages entirely. He’s mad, terrified and shaking because that can’t be it. There has to be more, right? Something that makes him think he might get a happy ending, something that makes him excited to be who he is, to accept how he feels.

The next day, he doesn’t look Peter in the eye when Peter’s Aunt May picks him up from the tower and takes him home, just offers a noncommittal hum when Peter asks if they can work together in the lab sometime, excitedly tells him that he should attend Midtown now that he knows Harley’s staying in New York, seems overjoyed at the idea of spending more time with Harley.

Tony asks if he’s okay, after Peter leaves. Harley nods, feels sick, and spends the next two days in his room, staring at the bumps and grooves in his ceiling and thinks—thinks—thinks—

_You do this, you do. You take the things you love and tear them apart_

_You take the things you love and tear them apart_

_You take the things you love and_

_t e a r_

_t h e m_

_a p a r t_

The third day, he starts at Midtown, Tony his legal guardian and no word from his mother even though he knows that she knows where he is. He almost calls home, just to talk to Emma, but backs out at the last minute and takes a shower instead, trying to prepare for his first day at a new school. When he wakes up the morning of his first day, there’s a backpack fully stocked with everything he needs for his classes, a schedule tucked into the front pocket with a note from Tony attached, saying, _I managed to get you the same schedule as Pete so that he can show you around and keep you company. Lunch money is in your wallet. Call me if you need me for anything, big or small, okay? Love you, kid. T.S._

Despite the heavy dread that’s been sitting in the pit of his stomach like a heavy stone, Harley smiles a bit and realizes that his mom never left him notes, even though she always left for work before he got up for school. Thinking back on it, Darcy was a little on the distant side. Tony, so far, is not.

Peter grins when he sees Harley.

It’s an ear splitting sort of grin, one that’s so wide and excited that it looks like it hurts, and then he grabs Harley’s hand and weaves them through the crowded hall while Harley’s heart lodges in his throat at the feeling of the soft hand holding his own, almost doesn’t realize that they’ve come to a stop until Peter drops his hand and chirpily exclaims, “Harley, this is Ned! Ned, this is the guy I told you about!”

“You told him about me?” Harley asks, before his eyes have even focused on the kind faced boy that’s smiling at him, before he takes in the way that Peter is still grinning with a glowing beam of brightness that Harley has to duck his head and look away from before it makes him feel some kind of blind.

“Of course I did,” Peter says, scoffing a bit, like it’s obvious. “You’re, like, the coolest person I’ve ever met, other than Mr. Stark, obviously. Even Ned can’t keep up with my science crap as well as you can!”

Ned just shrugs, clearly not bothered by that statement. “It’s true. And now that he has someone as smart as him, I don’t have to be the only person he rambles about science to. You’re saving my life, honestly.”

A dust of pink—a blush, a pretty, pretty blush, Harley realizes with his breath stuck somewhere in the molasses that’s filling his weakened lungs—dusts over the curve of Peter’s cheeks as he glowers at Ned and lightly shoves his shoulder, grumbling, “Don’t be a dick, Ned. I talk about non-science things.”

“When?” Ned asks, all teasing with a cheeky grin. He sticks a hand out to Harley them, still bright and happy and definitely the kind of person to be Peter Parker’s best friend. “It’s nice to meet you, though!”

“Yeah, uh—” Harley pushes past the clawing urge to pretend he doesn’t see Ned’s hand, reaches forward and shakes it slightly, quickly, pulls his hand back like he’s been burned because Peter grabbed that same hand, too, and he feels like he’s done something wrong, touching two boys, even in such harmless and simple little ways. “It’s nice to meet you, too. I’m—I’m Harley. Harley Keener.”

Neither of them points out that Peter already said their names. Ned just smiles wider. “Ned Leeds.”

The bell rings before Harley can scramble for a response, and suddenly Peter’s holding his hand again to show him where their first class of the day is, barely manages to wave to Ned as they leave, his hands hopefully not shaking so bad as to be obvious when he does so. Ned waves back and laughs a bit and disappears in the opposite direction from them and Peter doesn’t let go of his hand until they’re sitting down at the middle table of their first period class, Peter already happily talking about how excited he is that Harley is going to Midtown, doesn’t stop talking until the teacher walks in.

Harley is hooked on to every single word, even when his ears start to ring.

In comparison, Midtown is a welcome change for Harley, intellectually stimulating in a way that Rose Hill High had never been for him. Ned treats him like they’ve been friends for years and MJ is quiet but smiles at him and lets him sit next to her when waiting outside for Happy to pick him up from school. Homework keeps him distracted from the crumpled up pages in the top drawer of his desk and he learns to act more normal despite the way his heart still thuds in his chest when Peter’s near.

Tony teases him for his crush whenever Peter’s not around, pokes him in the stomach and snickers about teenage love and asks him every day if he’s made a move yet, even though he knows that Harley can’t really bring himself to, even on the days when he catches Peter looking at him, when their hands brush in the lab and he sees the way Peter’s breath gets caught and makes his chest stutter, when he thinks that his crush is a two way street. No matter how much he tells himself there’s nothing wrong with liking boys, it’s engrained into him enough to keep him from ever even thinking of bringing his feelings up.

Still, he appreciates the way Tony teases him about it, like a normal father in a normal family poking fun at his normal son about a normal crush. It helps, a little bit. Harley could tell him to stop and he knows that he would, but it’s not something he really wants to stop. Any sense of normalcy, he accepts.

Peter becomes a constant, a daily person in Harley’s daily life, meets him in front of the school every morning and goes to the tower at least three days a week to do homework and spend some time in the lab. When he gets hurt—and he does, on a regular basis, shows up on the balcony attached to the main living room with bullet grazes and minor stab wounds and cuts and bruises that are so dim in contrast to his bright, giddy smile that is just as blinding when it turns sheepish, twitches the ends of his lips every time Tony levels him with a stern look before leading him to get fixed up by Helen.

He grabs Harley’s hand so they don’t get lost in crowded hallways and sidewalks, and he laughs to the point of tears over a comment that Harley didn’t realize was funny at all, and Harley thinks they must be best friends because Peter climbs in through the window of his room one night with tears streaming down his face and all he does is ask if it’s okay that he stays the night before collapsing onto the bed at the sight of Harley’s timid nod. He doesn’t say what’s wrong until the morning, just clutches Harley in a hug and cries until he falls asleep and softly admits that it was the anniversary of his Uncle’s death when they stir awake in the morning, kind of tangled together with ankles hooked together and nose brushing with their close proximity and Harley is choking on the feeling of the moment but pushes it aside to hug Peter, doesn’t think once of the fear of a pretty boy’s touch because hugging seems to help Peter breathe and that’s all that really matters in the moment, whatever he can do to make it better.

Tony doesn’t say anything when they come out for breakfast, even though it’s a school day and Peter’s eyes are red rimmed and Harley looks seconds away from panicking. He just heads to the kitchen to cook up a nice breakfast and cancels his meetings for the day after making sure May knows that Peter’s safe.

It’s somewhere in the chilliness between Thanksgiving and Christmas that Peter finds the poem.

He’s not trying to find it, isn’t snooping around Harley’s room, rather hunched over at Harley’s desk with a highlighter and a red pen to edit the first draft of an essay that’s due in a week, absently asks Harley if he has a pencil because he lost his at school and doesn’t want to mark this certain mistake in red pen, and when Harley vaguely gestures at the drawers, he pulls open the top one and finds crumpled up papers staring up at him, sees the scribbled down words that make no sense without context, and, curious to an almost dangerous point, doesn’t hesitate to ask, “Hey, what’s this?”

Harley looks up from where he’s sitting on his bed and filling out notecards for his history presentation, sees what Peter is looking at and goes pale as a sheet. “Um, it’s—it’s a poem. Sort of.”

“You write poetry?” Peter questions, looks wide eyed and surprised and intrigued.

“No, I, um—I found it, online,” Harley corrects, looks down at where he’s tapping the end of his pen against his history textbook, just to have something else to focus on. “It’s by, um—by Richard Siken. I guess I just… I liked it, so I wrote it down, but then I didn’t like it anymore and put it in there.”

There’s a twitch in Peter’s fingers that gives away his want to grab the papers and read them, but he doesn’t do that, just tilts his head to the side. “Why didn’t you like it anymore?”

Harley shrugs a shoulder, doesn’t look up. “It’s hard to explain, but it… I guess it, um—I just assumed that it would… I thought it would be different than it was, and when it wasn’t what I hoped, I just…”

“You didn’t throw it away,” Peter points out. Then: “Can I read it?”

Instantly, Harley wants to say no, because he hasn’t told a single soul since admitting his truth to Tony, doesn’t know if he can do it again, but there’s something so genuine and sincere in Peter’s eyes, a curiosity that holds no malicious intent, something that Harley should know by now but still fears will change at the flip of a switch. Slowly, he nods. “Um, yeah, if you—if you want to, then go for it.”

“Are you sure?” Peter asks, clearly detecting the uncertainty coursing through Harley’s veins.

Harley falters, but nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure.”

For a moment, Peter doesn’t move, scans over Harley’s features for any sign of hesitation, any hint that he might want to change his mind. Once he seems satisfied, he finally reaches into the drawer, pulls out the crumpled up papers and flattens them out on the top of the desk. Harley looks away, looks back, looks away again, can’t decide if he wants to see Peter’s reaction or avoid it, feels the heaviness in the silence that hangs in the air as Peter reads it, then appears to read it again, then a third time, too.

“Um.” Harley clears his throat, can’t let it be quiet any longer. “What do you think?”

Peter glances at Harley, eyes unreadable. “It’s kind of… kind of sad? Good, but… yeah.”

“Yeah, it, um…” Harley trails off, scrunches his nose up with a frown and then decides that he doesn’t like the feeling of lodging his words in his throat when he’s too scared to say them. “I kind of—I liked it because I found it when I was, like, thirteen years old, and I could—I related to it, y’know? But then I wanted it to be, um—to be hopeful, I guess? And I really wanted something hopeful, and it—it made me kind of upset, but I didn’t want to get rid of it, for some reason, so I just… I just put it there instead.”

“Hopeful…?” Peter purses his lips a bit, looks down at the poem then up at Harley. “If you want to read something that’ll make you feel hopeful, there are other poems. There are _happier_ poems.”

Harley frowns, shakes his head a bit. “I don’t think you get it,” he says, a bit hushed and fearful. “I related to it because… because that’s—that’s me, okay? I’m—I’m gay.”

“And I’m bi,” Peter tells him, simple and straight forward and to the point. “There are happy, hopeful poems for boys who like boys, Harley. This isn’t the only queer poem out there. I can—hold on, just let me, um—” he sets the pages down, pulls out his phone and taps away on the screen with a determined little furrow to his brows. Then, tearing out a paper from his notebook, he starts to scribble something down while Harley watches, unsure and confused.

“What are you—?”

“Hold on,” Peter says, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration as the pen moves across the page. He rips out another page, then seems to grow frustrated and just opens up his notebook to start writing in it rather than stealing pages out of it. Harley feels stuck, flabbergasted and frozen, and he doesn’t know how long he sits there and watches before Peter lets out a huff and finally leans back, satisfaction in his eyes as he hands it all to Harley, all the scribbled writing and torn pages. “Read these.”

Harley blinks once, slow, as he takes the offered notebook with the ripped out papers on top. “What…?”

And Peter just smiles and shrugs. “They’re poems,” he says. “I looked some up, wrote down the good parts. Maybe those’ll give you that hopeful feeling that you were looking for.”

Cautiously, after a long moment of hesitation, Harley lets his gaze drop, eyes slowly scanning over the scrawled out words in front of him, and immediately, desperately, gets pulled in by the portions of poetry he reads, every poem separated by a simple scratch of a line.

_-_

_But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any person for miles around approach unawares,_

_Or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea or some quiet island,_

_Here to put your lips upon mine I permit you,_

_With the comrade’s long-dwelling kiss or the new husband’s kiss,_

_For I am the new husband and I am the comrade._

_Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing,_

_Where I may feel the throbs of your heart or rest upon your hip,_

_Carry me when you go forth over land or sea;_

_For thus merely touching you is enough, is best,_

_And thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried eternally._

— _Walt Whitman, “Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand”_

_-_

_oh god it’s wonderful_

_to get out of bed_

_and drink too much coffee_

_and smoke too many cigarettes_

_and love you so much_

— _Frank O’Hara, “Steps”_

_-_

_Take me. Take this. My wasted life and all its bliss—the sea of your waking body_

_dawning with its warm grip on night’s wrist. Your lips once curled into me._

— _Ruben Quesada_

_-_

_He sits_

_All alone_

_Waiting_

_For his love_

_Never would he guess_

_He would fall for him_

_A beautiful man_

_As bright as the sun_

_Like a flower_

_With no time to fade_

_Fluffy hair_

_Bouncing in the wind_

_What I wouldn’t do_

_To have him as mine_

_Over time they fell_

_Falling deeper as time went on_

_Finally ending_

_This romantic fairy tale_

— _Sunset Meadows, “His Love”_

_-_

_i’ll waste all my chances at heaven darling — i’ll waste all my chances for the midnights we spent dreaming, stranded inside an old lighthouse as the waves crashed on the shore. i’ll waste my chances for a mouthful kisses, dissolving the gaps between the stars. i’ll waste my chances for a sliver of early morning poems, for sunsets dripping on our skin, for seconds where i can hold your hand — free and unafraid, for minutes where i can be a sinner and you, my capital sin. for hours where i can melt all the world and its hurtful words inside your arms._

_darling, i’ll waste all my chances at heaven if i can’t love you way past its walls._

_i’ll waste all my chances at heaven — and i’ll waste them all on you._

— _Fray Narte, “chances at heaven”_

_-_

It’s this last poem that really makes Harley stop. He reads it a second time, a third, fourth, fifth. He reads it again and again and then he just stares at the blurry words as he asks, “Would you give up Heaven to be with someone you love? Even if… even if loving that person was a sin?”

“I don’t think I believe in Heaven,” Peter admits, a bit quiet and meek. “But my Uncle Ben did, and he always said that there’s nothing wrong with love, even when other people say there is. And, if… if I did believe in Heaven, I think I’d give it up for the right person, ‘cause if they really _are_ the right person then loving them is all the Heaven you need, right? Nothing could be better than that.”

Harley considers Peter’s words for a long, drawn out moment, still staring down at that last poem with a sinking feeling in his stomach, heart thudding heavily and angrily and loudly in his aching chest. “So,” he starts, slow and unsure and weighed down by a million incomprehensible thoughts swirling around his overwhelmed brain. “So, like, a—a person? A person could be your Heaven?”

When he chances a look, Peter is pursing his lips in consideration, a crease between his furrowed brows as he tilts his head from side to side. Then, carefully, he says, “I think anything can be your Heaven.”

“Anything?” Harley repeats, all air and very little noise.

Peter nods, the action sure despite the frown pulling at the ends of his lips. “Yeah, like… I mean, I think it depends on the person, you know? Like, I—I dunno, it’s hard to—hard to put into words, but… but, like, comfort food, in a sense. Maybe one person’s Heaven is a person, maybe another person’s Heaven is their childhood home, or whatever. I dunno, I’m not—I’m not really, like, religious, and I never really have been, so I don’t really have, like, an idea of how a religious person, for any religion, might think about it, but—but I don’t believe in Heaven, and I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife, so I—I try to find comfort in the idea that Heaven can be found on Earth, y’know? Like, Heaven is something that can be found while you’re still alive, in whatever way, shape, or form is best for you. Does that make sense?”

Harley just stares at him, wide eyed and stunned because that’s a simple perspective that he’s never even considered before. His faith is based solely on what he’s been told his entire life, God and Jesus and Heaven and Hell being preached to him by every single person in his life—by his teachers, his mother, his father (before the guy took off, of course), even by the coach of the soccer team he was on when he was nine. No one ever gave him the option to question what he really believes in, and no one ever offered such a different idea on a silver platter. Maybe Heaven is more abstract than he ever considered it to be before.

And maybe there are more poems, too. Poems like the ones Peter found with a simple Google search.

“It makes sense,” he whispers when he realizes that he hasn’t responded yet. Peter flicks his eyes over to meet Harley’s and a sheepish sort of smile grows on his features. “It makes… a lot of sense, actually.”

There’s a moment of nothing, of quiet contemplation. Then Peter clears his throat and asks, “So, which drawer would a pencil be in, then? ‘Cause I really need to finish this essay, like, _yesterday.”_

For now, that’s all that needs to be said.


	2. all the fear and the fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i meant for this to be two parts but it's getting much longer than i thought it would, so...  
> part three hopefully won't take as long to write as part two did, but i make no promises.  
> chapter title is from wasteland, baby by hozier.

Sometime before Harley’s seventeenth birthday—though not too far ahead, only a few weeks leading up to the big day, over a year and a half after Harley flees to New York and moves in with Tony Stark and falls in love (because that’s what it is, love) with Peter Parker—he decides to write his own poem.

He’s been looking, ever since Peter showed him the poems he found—he’s been trying to find something that clenches at his heart the way the poem by Richard Siken did, but he can’t seem to find anything that hits him in quiet a similar way. He finds hundreds of poems, sure, happy ones and sad ones and the ones that make him cry, and Peter will sometimes leave a few folded over pages on his bed or his desk or in his locker with more poetry that he found scribbled down on it, seems to understand that this is a big deal to Harley despite Harley never having to say it out loud, but nothing seems right.

Maybe—and he thinks of this while reminiscing on when Peter found the Richard Siken poem in his desk drawer, remembers the way he had gone wide in the eyes and seemed so intrigued when he asked if Harley wrote poetry—maybe this is something he has to do himself. If he can’t _find_ the poem that captures the essence of his soul and spills his bleeding heart on the page, then he’ll _write_ it instead.

The problem is, he doesn’t know _how_ to write poetry. He’s never done it before, and, despite how many poems he’s read in his search for that special something, he has no clue how to put one together, doesn’t know a proper way to string together the right words or put them in the best order. And it’s not from a lack of trying, either—he does try. He tries again, and again, and again. He tries to pour his heart out onto wrinkled notebook paper and into the notes app on his phone and he stares at the words he puts down and they feel fabricated, somehow, like, no matter how much honesty he tries to force into it, that’s all it is—forced, fake, not really capturing how he feels. It’s infuriating, the way that nothing seems to work.

He tells Tony about it—has been telling Tony a lot of things, a lot more things, having spent his first year here swallowing back everything he wants to say, having to get it carefully coaxed out of him whenever Tony is able to push past his own problems and try to talk to Harley about things they need to talk about, and, slowly, Harley’s began to stop always hiding it, always shoving it down. Tony Stark isn’t like Darcy Keener. Darcy wanted normal, wanted a regular kid, a straight kid. Tony wants Harley to be happy, and Harley—Harley trusts him, cares about him, loves him like a father. So, he tells him.

“Don’t overthink it,” Tony says, holds a hand in the air, hovering, waits for Harley to initiate the comforting touch because, sometimes, even now, almost two years later, there’s that voice, in the back of his mind, quiet yet insistent, telling him all the things he ran away from. Harley leans over and lets Tony’s hand fall on his shoulder, accepts the comfort because that voice is quiet today. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m no artist, but, when it comes to passion, you can’t—you can’t let your brain get in the way. Overthinking it will just ruin it. It’s gotta be all heart, kid. All heart or no dice.”

Which would be fine and dandy, except Harley doesn’t know how to not overthink it. That’s all he does, is think, and think, and think about thinking. His brain is a battleground of conflicting ideas and beliefs and expectations and negotiations and he doesn’t know how to make it stop, doesn’t know how to be all heart, or even mostly heart. Sure, his heart is right here, in his chest and beating healthily, but it’s _quiet._

It’s been beaten into silence by parents that were supposed to stay with him and love him. It’s been crippled under the weight of knowing that he’s only been able to talk to his little sister three times since running from Rose Hill. It’s been silenced and smothered and killed and resuscitated and it doesn’t know how to express anymore, only ever seems to make noise for Peter Parker—when Peter stands too close, when they brush hands or curl together on bad nights or laugh until they’re crying because they’re so tired and delirious and everything is funny at two in the morning (until everything turns sad at three). Harley doesn’t know how to put that noise onto paper, though.

Maybe that’s the point—Harley is trying too hard. But he has no clue how to change that. Harley doesn’t know how to not think too much or try too hard. To just… feel. That’s an unfamiliar thing.

But he feels, now, sitting at the edge of the spinny chair at the desk in his room, homework forgotten in front of him as he clutches his phone in his hands. The fear he usually feels while knowing that Peter is out and about is not nearly as prominent as it was a year and a half ago, no—he’s become, at least to a minor level, desensitized to the daily dangers that Peter faces as a teenage vigilante/superhero. Yes, Harley worries, always sits by Peter’s bed in the med bay whenever his injuries are just on the wrong side of okay, but he stopped feeling the need to stay up every single night about a year ago, understands and trusts that Peter knows his limits and that Friday will wake him up if something big is going on, knows that Tony worries, too, and Tony keeps Peter safe—but the fear he feels right now is paralyzing.

This, what he’s seeing right now— _this isn’t safe._ On his phone, he sees the coverage of none other than Spider-Man, Peter Parker himself swinging around in his suit, up against some deranged looking man with mechanical, metal arms. According to the scroll of words, the media has already named this guy Doc Ock, and he isn’t holding back, swiping at Spidey with ruthless determination, managing to grab him and slam him into the street, into buildings, as the two make their way through a thankfully evacuated street somewhere near Midtown. In some way, it almost appears like some sort of dance, an air of elegance surrounding the two as they circle around each other and make their way down the streets of New York.

It’s not a dance, though—this isn’t some choreographed art, the outcome isn’t already planned. As the fight goes on, it becomes more and more clear that Spider-Man is slowing down, each hit that sends him crashing into something hard, into signs and cars and buildings and slamming his head against curbs, all making him less coordinate, less agile. Peter had been tired this morning, Harley knows, having stayed up late to finish an assignment that he forgot was due today, and it shows now, in his under the weather performance and his quickly dwindling ability to hold his own. Harley feels more fear now than he has in a long, long time, his heart thudding heavily in his chest and his voice a mere croak as he says, “Friday, please tell me Tony is on his way to help Peter. Please.”

“Boss just left the tower in order to assist Mr. Parker,” Friday replies. “ETA of three and a half minutes.”

“That’s not gonna be fast enough,” Harley murmurs, truly stricken with terror, his hands shaking as he sets his phone on the desk, uses his Spider-Man pop socket that Peter jokingly gave him as a present to keep it propped up so that he can keep watching, even as he nervously taps at his desk and scratches at his inner wrists until it stings just a little too much to keep doing it, knowing that Friday will be forced to tell Tony if Harley draws blood. Not that he does it on purpose, but it happens nonetheless, just often enough to have a protocol built for it, just enough to know that, if it gets to that point, then Peter will try to make jokes because he knows that all Harley craves is a feeling of normalcy but he’ll look so sad and it will make Harley’s heart make one of those rare noises, crying out in some kind of anguish for making that crease form between his brows, for bringing that shadow to his brown eyes that make them glisten in vague distress, for causing his lips to twitch when he smiles and tries to fight off a frown. Harley doesn’t want to make Peter sad, knows that he should avoid the scratching for himself but figures it’s a process to get to that point, figures that he should start with having a reason at all and then work towards making that reason something more about himself instead of making it about the people he loves.

And the _person_ he loves, the boy he’s in love with, is being beaten on the screen, was trying to get the high ground but gets snatched mid-air by an extended, mechanical claw that grips his middle and slams hims down against the cement, and Harley doesn’t have the volume on because it’ll either be audio from the fight or a news anchor speaking over it and he doesn’t think he can handle either right now, goes from scratching at his wrists to nervously tugging at the sleeves of his hoodie—of, not his hoodie, but Peter’s hoodie, a dark blue Midtown Tech sweatshirt that Peter let Harley borrow a while ago and hasn’t bothered to ask to have back—and biting at his nails and watching, watching, watching.

“How much longer until Tony gets there?” Harley asks, quiet and fearful as he sees the way Spidey squirms in Doc Ock’s hold, trying to pry the claws off of him but being unable to escape. The red of the suit hides it, but Harley thinks he can tell that Peter is bleeding, has become accustomed to the way Peter holds himself when he’s injured, like he’s trying to act like he’s fine but is struggling to hold his own weight. His arms are visibly shaking as he tries to push Doc Ock away from him, and the eyes of the Spider-Man suit are narrowed down, like he’s squinting through his pain.

Friday sounds almost regretful when she says, “One minute and thirty four seconds.”

Harley’s heart is lodged in his throat, somehow jumping from his chest and suffocating him as it thuds heavily, terrified. “That’s not fast enough,” he croaks. “He needs to get there sooner.” Because Peter’s getting weaker and weaker and is moving less and less and while one clawed arm is holding him down, another is raising menacingly into the air, the claws coming together in a sharp, threatening point. “He needs to get there _now,”_ Harley says, voice shaking. “Where is he? Friday, where is he? He needs to—”

The pointed arm comes down and digs into Spider-Man’s abdomen, and Harley’s relieved that the sound isn’t on because just imagining the sound of Peter crying out in pain is enough to make Harley feel sick. When the arm retracts, red glints off the silver metal, and Harley has seen Peter injured, plenty of times, really, but this is a fatal kind of injury, and the last time Peter was fatally injured was the night they first met, when Tony had brought a bleeding out Peter to the tower, his home made Spidey suit torn and burned and bloodied and his grin dazed and his words tired yet chirpy as he introduced himself, seeming happy to meet Harley despite the fact that it had been less than an hour since he had to crash a plane into the beach and fight the Vulture, after being crushed by a warehouse and barely making it through. Harley hadn’t known him back then, and this—this is different. This is someone Harley loves. This is not a stranger, not an unknown pretty boy that made Harley throw up after meeting because finding boys pretty is still one of the scariest parts of his own mind. This is someone that Harley has been falling in love with for over a year and a half now, someone that Harley considers his best friend, that he—that he wants to tell he loves but hasn’t been able to yet because it’s still a daily fight, still a constant battle, trying to remind himself that he knows he isn’t an abomination for being gay but still feeling like he’s wrong.

But that’s not wrong, is it? It can’t be. What’s wrong is what he’s seeing now, the blood pooling around Spider-Man’s limp form, no longer fighting back, likely not even conscious anymore. What’s wrong is the fact that Harley’s sitting here, at his desk, not moving, not breathing, not doing _anything_ while he watches a live broadcast of what very well could be Peter Parker’s death. What’s wrong is losing Peter before ever really having him at all—not in the way Harley wishes he was strong enough to have.

 _Peter dying_ is wrong. Harley being gay is _nothing,_ it _doesn’t matter,_ it’s just a simple fact that shouldn’t be weighing over him constantly. If Peter Parker dies, if Harley watches as it happens, unable to do anything but stare at a stupid phone screen— _that’s_ wrong. _That’s_ something for Harley to be afraid of.

“Oh, god,” Harley mumbles, curls his fingers so his hands form fists and his nails dig into his palms painfully and just keeps watching, unable to do anything else. “Where is he, Friday? Peter—he needs—”

“Boss is ten seconds away,” Friday tells him, tone almost soothing.

Harley nods, but his eyes are stuck, watching as Doc Ock lifts Spidey off the ground and slams him back down in his own growing puddle of blood, ignores the scrolling words at the bottom of the screen and holds his breath and counts down in his head until, finally—god, _finally_ —the red and gold suit enters the frame, coming in like a meteor of rage, instantly hitting Doc Ock and pushing him back and using some kind of laser to cut off the arm pinning Spidey down. The camera shifts, zooms out, to take in the full scene as Iron Man instantly throws punches and launches rockets while Doc Ock tries to fight him off, but Harley isn’t looking at the fight. His eyes are glued to the corner of the frame, on Peter, not moving and out of focus and—oh, the thought hurts to think, rips at his chest—possibly not even alive.

It isn’t until Iron Man lands next to Peter’s limp form that Harley realizes the fight is over, and he doesn’t know how long it took but he knows the puddle of blood has been slowly growing bigger and he doesn’t know if someone can survive losing that much blood. He watches, heart lodged in his throat, as the suit carefully lifts Spidey into metal arms and immediately flies away. Then, Friday says, “Boss will be landing in approximately four minutes. He says to either stay in your room until Mr. Parker is treated, or to go to the Med Bay waiting room and wait there. The option is yours, Mr. Keener.”

Slowly, Harley blinks, reaching forward with trembling hand to grab his phone before standing on unsteady legs and robotically making his way to the hallway, already knowing that there’s no way he’ll be able to sit in his room while Peter’s potentially dying a few floors down. He has to be close, and he has to know, as soon as he possibly can, if Peter’s gonna be okay or not.

He catches a mere glimpse of Peter when Tony arrives, glances up when the elevator doors slide open and see a flash of the Iron Man suit and dripping blood and something pink that he’s fairly certain is supposed to be inside the body and not visible, but then Tony’s pushing through the doors across the room, where Helen Cho and her team are already waiting, and Harley is left alone, shaking, staring at the drops of blood starting at the elevator and leading across the floor. It glistens back at him until he has to look away, but the rest of the room is too crisp and clean and white, and he finds himself staring at the blood again, unable to look away, unable to tell how much time is passing. He doesn’t notice when Tony enters the room again, no longer in his suit, looking shaken. He doesn’t notice when Tony tries to talk to him, doesn’t notice when, after he doesn’t respond, Tony heads to the elevator and leaves.

He doesn’t notice much of anything until Tony comes back, with two plates of food in hand and a notebook tucked under his arm. Even then, he only blinks back into awareness when Tony stands directly in front of him, blocking his view of the blood, and it feels almost like he’s been electrocuted when he jolts back to himself and snaps his head up to find Tony looking down at him, features taut, eyes worried. “Friday says you were watching the whole thing,” he says. “You saw it. All of it. Right?”

Slowly, Harley nods, clears his throat and responds with a croaky, “Yeah. It was… on the news, so…”

Tony nods, too, moves over to sit next to Harley and balances one of the plates in his lap, holding the other out to Harley expectantly. “Eat,” he instructs. “It’s light food, easy on the stomach. Eat as much as you can right now. Even if it’s just a bite or two. Okay?” He keeps holding the plate out until Harley takes it into shaky hands, then keeps looking, waiting for Harley to start eating.

“I don’t…” Harley trails off, stares down at his plate in uncertainty, gazes over the banana slices, the two slices of toast, and the little plastic cup of apple sauce with a spoon sticking out. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Try,” Tony says, then makes a point of grabbing a slice of banana from his own plate and shoving it in his mouth, chews it and forces it down, even as he makes an unpleasant face at it, clearly not in the mood to eat but knowing he has to. Harley thinks that Tony knows him too well, knows that Harley wouldn’t try eating if Tony didn’t have food of his own, but he shakily copies Tony’s actions, grabs a slice of banana and hates the way he can barely taste it but still makes himself swallow, his stomach twisting in protest for a moment before settling. Tony smiles, uneasy but genuine. “Good. Now just… just keep trying.”

It’s a slow process, a silent process, but they both pick at their plates until most of the food is gone, and Harley has to admit, he feels better by the time he sets his plate aside, setting it on the empty seat opposite the side that Tony’s sitting. Without something to grip onto, he starts wringing his fingers, needing to do something but feeling unable to do much more than force his lungs to keep on breathing. It’s quiet for a while longer, and Harley wonders how long it’s been, can’t place how much time has passed since he started watching the broadcast, but that train of thought cuts short when Tony suddenly places the notebook he came in with in Harley’s hand, a pen clipped to the front cover. Harley stares at it for a moment, then looks over at Tony, confused. “What’s this for?”

There’s a certain heaviness in Tony’s eyes, a tension to his shoulders, an overall aura of distress that he always wears whenever Peter gets hurt, and it’s even more prominent now, even as he tries to smile through it, even as he settles a comforting hand on Harley’s shoulder and tells him, “You’re thinking too much, kid. I figured this could be a good time to try and… to try to _not_ think, you know?”

Harley furrows his brows, slowly turns his head to stare down at the notebook with trepidation, like it might attack him. “How? How do I… I don’t know how _not_ to think, Tony. I don’t know if I can.”

“You said the same thing about eating,” Tony points. “Then you almost cleared your plate.”

Harley shakes his head. “This isn’t… this isn’t the same thing. This is different.”

Tony cocks his head to the side, takes the pen and presses it to Harley’s palm. “Try.”

“But—”

“No,” Tony cuts in. “Don’t think about why you think you can’t. That’s counterproductive. Just try.”

For a long, unsure moment, Harley just looks at the notebook, sizes it up in his mind, thinks of all the failed attempts of writing a poem, all crumpled up into paper balls piled in the garbage in his room, thinks that it might not be possible, then stops and thinks—and that’s the problem. He’s still thinking, and he can’t do that, can’t focus on failed attempts or reasons why he can’t. So, he ignores it, pushes back his thoughts and uses the hand that isn’t gripping the pen to flip open the front cover and takes in the sight of the blank first page, scans over the vacant lines, the empty space. “Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay. I’ll try.”

Tony lightly squeezes Harley’s shoulder, but doesn’t say anything else, instead picking up his plate and moving a few chairs down to give Harley his space. It makes it easier to breathe, somehow, and with each breath, each slow inhale, each heavy exhale, Harley tries to empty his brain, grips his pen and brings it down to the page and lets it hover there, focuses on his feeling of his heart, until it’s all he can feel, all he can hear, all he can really comprehend. His heart is making noise, and it’s his job to capture the sound.

He doesn’t think. Somehow, finally, _he doesn’t think._

He just writes.

There’s no indication of how long he sits there, no windows to show a setting sun, no clock to display the minutes ticking by. It’s a letter and a poem and a scribbled out contract of his very essence, the corners and the creases and the nitty gritty bits of his soul, opening his chest and emptying it out on the page. He writes the letter poem and then he writes another one, and then he writes something else, and something different, and something happier and something that feels heavy and something that’s sad. He writes until his hand cramps and his wrist aches and then he keep writing because he doesn’t know what else to do, doesn’t want to pull himself out of this moment of nonexistence and return to the reality of not knowing if Peter’s going to be okay or not, loses himself in the scratch of pen on paper, writes and writes and writes.

Until, what could be hours but feels like days later, a hand enters his vision and settles over his own, and he looks up, startled, to find Tony crouching in front of him, looking exhausted. “Helen’s done for now,” he says, keeps his voice on the softer side while he speaks. “Pete’s gonna pull through, as per usual.”

 _“Oh,”_ Harley breathes, really lets the word out with a heavy exhale and feels something settle over his chest, a little suffocating but a little similar to a comforting blanket, too. “Can I see him?”

“For a minute,” Tony nods, looks over his shoulder, towards the doors leading to the hall where all the Med Bay rooms can be found. “But he… he needs to heal, so Cho has him on some heavy meds to keep him under. He’s not gonna wake up until tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest. You should sleep, kiddo.”

Harley frowns at that, looks down at the notebook perched in his lap and clicks the end of the pen with a slow, unsteady exhale, before nodding his head once, the action curt, and saying, “Okay,” even though he wants to protest, wants to put up a fight until he can stay by Peter’s bed and wait for him to wake up. No matter how much he wants to, though, he knows that he can’t, knows that his energy was sapped up in the adrenaline that came with watching the broadcast, knows that the last of his brain power was used in scribbling out words on page after page after page. He’s tired. He’s exhausted.

But he needs to see Peter, before he can rest for a little while.

Peter, shockingly, just looks like he’s asleep, if you only look at his face. Bruises fade fast for him, and, other than a slight discoloration on his right cheekbone that’s only really visible at specific angles in certain lighting, there’s not much of a hint on his features that he almost died. Sure, once Harley looks away from his sleep soft features, he can see the truth, can tell in the machines hooked up to him, in the bulk beneath his hospital gown where the bandages are, but those things make Harley’s stomach churn, so he just looks back at Peter’s face and tells him, “I wrote something for you, and I need you to read it,” and hopes that the underlying plea of _wake up wake up wake up_ is obvious enough to go without saying.

It shouldn’t be a surprise when Peter doesn’t move—Tony told him that Peter’s under the influence of some pretty strong drugs to keep him asleep while his body works on healing itself—but it still makes something in Harley’s chest ache when he doesn’t get a response. Tony, from the doorway, lets out a sympathetic sigh, steps forward and says, “I know it’s hard, but we need to get some sleep, kid. There’s nothing we can do for him while he’s out like this, and it’s always better to be well rested when he wakes up, because he’s just gonna feel bad and blame himself if he sees us looking like shit.”

That pushes a small, half-humorless laugh from Harley’s throat, around the lump that he’s struggling to breathe around. “I get it,” he assures. “I just—I want him to be awake now. I want him to be okay.”

“He will be,” Tony says, almost like a promise—one that he shouldn’t make. “He always is.”

“Until the day he isn’t anymore,” Harley whispers, choking on—on _something_ when he forces it out.

Tony falters, then says, “Let’s hope we never see that day, then,” before carefully stepping forward and lifting an arm and waiting until Harley leans into the offered comfort. Then, after another short moment where they both stare at Peter’s chest, rising and falling, rising and falling, he turns them around and leads the way out of the room, down the hall, and into the elevator to bring them upstairs.

He doesn’t think it’s possible, but after eating half a sandwich and sipping a small glass of water until it’s gone, Harley’s able to fall into a somewhat peaceful sleep, not plagued by nightmares, not even really dreaming, per se, only capturing glimpses of red and blue and crumpled up notebook paper scattered across linoleum floors. By the time he’s blinking himself awake, he feels a little bit rested and more than a little antsy to get back to the Med Bay, rolling out of bed and not even bothering to change out of his pajama’s before trotting down the hall and heading straight to the elevator, his notebook tucked under his arm and a pen twirling between his fingers in an absent sort of way, simply just giving him something to do with one of his hands while the other reaches up to rub the sleep from his eyes. He hadn’t bothered to check the time, didn’t grab his phone or glance at his alarm clock before leaving his room, so he’s not sure if it’s early or late, but it isn’t until he walks into Peter’s room and sees the sun streaming through the window that he realizes he might have slept in longer than intended.

Plus, Peter is awake, and Tony said he wasn’t supposed to wake up until the afternoon, at the earliest. It makes him freeze, seeing Peter’s wide brown eyes blinking at him, and he, for a short moment, questions just what time it really is, before it hits him, suddenly—Peter is awake. Peter is looking at him. Alive.

“Thank _God,”_ Harley breathes, and he means it, for what is probably the first time ever—if there is a God, and he was raised to believe there is, then Harley will thank that God until his final breath because Peter Parker still has a beating heart and that’s something to be grateful for. He makes that clear, too, staggers over to press a hand to the side of Peter’s hospital bed because his legs suddenly feel weak beneath his weight. “Thank God,” he repeats, like a chant. _“Thank God, thank_ _God, thank God—”_

“Harley,” Peter cuts in, wide eyed and beautiful and that’s not so daunting, not anymore, because Harley would rather Peter be beautiful and alive than be afraid to admit he’s pretty. “I’m okay. It’s fine.”

Harley shakes his head, grabs his notebook and pushes it towards Peter with a sudden desperation that he can’t fully explain. “You can’t die,” he says, more pleading than anything else. “You _can’t,_ Peter. You can’t do that, not—not at all, but especially not before—not before you read any of this. Okay?”

For a moment, Peter just stares at Harley in some kind of confusion, before slowly nodding his head, murmuring a soft little, “Okay,” and lowering his gaze to the notebook, almost wary of it as he carefully takes it in his hands and flips over the front cover. He doesn’t start reading, not immediately, instead flickers his eyes up to Harley again, a frown tugging at his healing busted lip, before looking back down at the first page with a slow, steady sort of sigh, brows creasing together as he takes in the words.

* * *

_the first time i saw you, i got sick._

_i was fifteen. you know that, because you were fifteen, too, but i was fifteen and damaged in a way i don’t think i’ll ever be able to fully explain. there are demons, you see—they’re in my head, lurking behind corners and whispering things i don’t want to hear. i saw you, fifteen and damaged and haunted by these demons, and you were beaten and bloody and battered and bruised and i thought you looked beautiful and the demons sneered and spat and swore at me until i felt nauseous and lost my dinner in the bathroom._

_you were sweet. so beyond sweet, so caring and genuine and fearless in a way i never will be. you still are, and we’re almost seventeen now, and sometimes i look at you and i feel sick again, but not in a bad way. never in a bad way. not when it comes to you. everything about you is good._

_i’m not so sure that i am. good, i mean. not like you are._

_you deserve poetry and love letters and musical symphonies and magic and the most beautiful art the world has to offer. you deserve good things, the best things, and yet you seem to think so little of yourself. it’s never you that you put first, it’s everyone else. you value everybody other than you._

_i don’t know what this is. it’s kind of a letter, but it also isn’t. i’d like to call it poetry, but that isn’t right, either. this is just something, from me and to you, and it’s everything i’m scared to say. like the fact that i was so attracted to you when we met that i was physically sick. like the fact that i feel like i can’t breathe when you’re close to me. like the fact that it shouldn’t be possible but i know i’m in love with you and it doesn’t matter if that scares me anymore because nothing is scarier than the thought of you dying._

_every beat of your heart is a blessing to this world and if it ever stops, i don’t know what the world will do. i don’t know how it will keep spinning without you, how life with go on if you’re gone._

_frankly, i don’t think that it can._

* * *

Peter stares at this first page for a long, long time. There’s more in there, Harley knows—he didn’t stop writing for a while, filled pages and pages and pages with scribbled down words, pouring his soul onto the paper and hoping it came out legible. But Peter doesn’t flip the page, not yet. He just looks, and he keeps looking, and his adam’s apple bobs when he roughly swallows before he finally looks away and settles his eyes on Harley, tears gathering and lower lip trembling slightly. Harley’s hands are shaking.

“You’re in love with me?” Peter asks, kind of croaks it out with a wavering voice.

Harley wants to deny it, instinctively feels the need to hide, but he just clenches his jaw and takes a deep breath and juts his chin up in a curt nod. “Yeah,” he says. “Have been for… for a while.” Then, averting his eyes, he nods again, only now he nods to the notebook. “There’s more in there. It’s all… it’s for you.”

But Peter doesn’t seem all too focused on the notebook, reaches over to set it on the mattress next to him, still looking at Harley with shock and awe and—and something else, too. “You’re in love with me.”

“I am,” Harley says, more sure sounding now. “I’m in love with you.”

It looks like Peter wants to jump to his feet, but he can’t, not healed enough to be able to do much more than sit up and reach out a hand, beckoning Harley to come closer. “You love me,” he breathes, like he can’t quite believe it. Harley takes a shuffled step forward, unsure, and then takes a few more when Peter keeps reaching for him, until Peter is able to lightly grab him by the wrist and tug him closer. Peter blinks up at him, grins wide and breathless. “I love you,” he says. “I’m in love with you. Like, all the way.”

Something about that phrasing, about the way that Peter wears a cheesy grin and has shimmering eyes and says those words, startles a laugh out of Harley. “All the way? What does that even—”

“It means everything,” Peter cuts in quickly, sounding some kind of mix between determined and offended, though the offense seems to mostly be for show as he lowers his grip from Harley’s wrist to grab his hand instead, lacing their fingers together. “It’s, like, an I would die for you kind of love, you know? I would do anything for you. The best part of my day is when I see you smile. All the way.”

A lump forms in Harley’s throat at that, clogs his airway and makes his lungs complain for a moment because hearing those words come from Peter’s mouth makes something inside of him cry out in fear and joy and everything in between. It’s an unbelievable feeling, indescribable, beyond words, but it’s also bittersweet, too, because even with the happiness that comes with the reciprocation of his feelings, he still needs to speak around the lump in his throat to say, “I’m—I’m messed up, Peter. You need to know that.”

A frown forms on Peter’s face as he holds Harley’s hand. “You’re not messed up, Harley.”

“Yes, I am,” Harley says, insistent, almost frantic, because this is something Peter needs to know if he’s going to love Harley, something he needs to be aware of so that he can make the decision to run away or not. “I’m not—I’m not me, most of the time, okay? I got—I can’t—I can’t do the things that people do, you know? People who—when they—people who date, or whatever. I can barely say how I feel about you out loud, let alone, you know, do—do things, that people in relationships do. Even just, just this, what you’re doing—” he gestures to their intertwined hands, “—this is almost—I don’t know. I can’t do it. I can’t be what you—what you deserve. I’m too—I’m just—I can’t, okay? I just can’t.”

Peter stares up at Harley with his wide brown eyes and his slightly parted lips and bandages peaking out from beneath his hospital gown, and he whispers, like it’s some kind of secret, something too precious to say out loud, “Harley, when I say that I love you, I mean that I love all of you, okay? Even the parts I don’t know yet, and the parts that have trauma, and the heavy things, and everything else, too. If holding hands is too much for you right now, then that’s okay. If it’s too much for you forever, then that’s okay, too. I don’t need whatever most people in relationships do. I just want whatever you’re willing to give.”

Harley bites down on the inside of his cheek, sort of gnaws on it anxiously, until the fear bubbles in his chest and forces him to say, “What if I can’t give you anything right now? Or if I never can?”

Peter smiles, and it’s full of nothing but love. “Then that’s okay, too. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you could,” Harley murmurs. “You almost—you could have died, and I never would have—”

“I didn’t die,” Peter cuts in, ducking his head to maintain eye contact when Harley tries to look away. “Listen to me, okay? I did not die. I’m here, and you’re here, and we have all the time in the world.”

Before Harley can respond, there’s a knock on the door, and they look over to find Tony standing in the doorway with a tray in his hand, piled up with foods and snacks and juice boxes. There’s a scratch near his temple that Harley hadn’t noticed the night before, but it’s already scabbed over and doesn’t appear to even be deep enough to require a bandage. “Delivery for the spider boy,” Tony tells them, lifting the tray just slightly to indicate what he’s talking about. “Am I interrupting anything important?”

Harley lets go of Peter’s hand and shakes his head. “No,” he says, even though he thinks the conversation he was having with Peter was the most important thing in the world.

Peter doesn’t seem particularly bothered about being interrupted, instead accepting the tray of food with gratitude and a wide grin, nodding through the mini lecture that Tony gives him and rolls his eyes fondly when Tony inevitably lets out a sigh and says, “I’m just glad you’re okay, kid,” before dragging over a chair to sit by Peter’s bed and telling Friday to put on one of Peter’s feel better movies. Harley settles into another chair and watches with them, and it feels normal, like Harley didn’t just confess his feelings, like Peter didn’t return them, like there wasn’t a painful reminder of just how fragile life can be and how easily it is to lose a loved one less than twenty four hours ago. Harley sinks into the normalcy with open arms and doesn’t focus on the what if’s and the why’s and the why not’s. He just exists.

And he keeps existing, day by day, neither him nor Peter bringing up what they had been talking about as Peter heals and gets better and eventually gets to go home, coming by for lab days and movie nights like nothing has changed. When Harley turns seventeen, Peter bakes him a cake and presents it to him with a beaming grin and frosting smeared on his cheek and that shimmering something in his eyes. Tony takes a picture and smiles warmly at them and Harley feels at home and comfortable and warm, and before Peter leaves to go home, when Tony is putting the left overs from dinner away in the kitchen and it’s just the two of them sitting in the living room, Peter reaches over and intertwines their fingers and looks intently at Harley before gently asking, “Is this too much?”

Harley’s heart is lodged in his throat as he shakes his head. “No. It’s… it’s okay.”

“Okay,” Peter murmurs, his lips turning up into a soft smile. “Happy birthday, Harley.”

That’s all that happens, for a while. Sometimes, Peter will hold his hand and ask if it’s okay and sometimes Harley will say yes and sometimes he will say no, because sometimes that voice is in his head again, sneering at him for being disgusting, for being an abomination, an unlovable queer and all the dirty words that he doesn’t want to hear. Peter never pushes when Harley says no, only lets go and puts enough space between them for Harley to be able to breath and starts up a new conversation like nothing is wrong, and Harley will find a way to push past the voice in his head and listen to Peter’s, instead. Sometimes, on a particularly good day, Harley will reach over and hold Peter’s hand, and he’s ask if it’s okay, and Peter will smile at him and nod his head and tell him that it definitely, definitely is.

It isn’t until Peter’s birthday, over a month and a half after Harley’s, that there’s something more than that. By this point, Harley doesn’t feel as overwhelmed when they hold hands—after all, holding hands is something they kind of did before their confessions, as well, when they were in the halls at school and didn’t want to lose each other in the crowd—and even on his more tough days, he doesn’t really say no when Peter asks if it’s okay, because even on his bad days, Harley finds comfort in the feeling.

On Peter’s birthday, though, Harley is memorized by Peter’s soft features being illuminated by the candles on his cake, the lights in the Parker’s apartment shut off to enhance it even further. Tony and May and Ned and MJ are all singing happy birthday to him, but Harley feels frozen, just looking at the way the candles reflect in Peter’s eyes, the way his grin is beaming and beautiful, and Harley reaches under the table without even thinking just to grab Peter’s hand, their fingers twining together with familiarity, and Peter looks at him, wide in the eyes and stunning, and his grin seems to grow, and he maintains eye contact as he leans forward to blow out the candles and squeezes Harley’s hand and something about the moment makes Harley feel choked up in a way he doesn’t fully understand. They hold hands under the table while they eat their cake, and maybe it isn’t as subtle as Harley hopes it is, maybe May sends them a knowing smile and MJ quirks her brow at him when they meet eyes, maybe Ned giggles under his breath when he sees it and Tony sends Harley a wink (always teasing Harley about his crush, ever since it formed, and it’s a blessing in disguise, the way it makes Harley remember that it’s normal, that it’s okay, that liking boys and having crushes on boys isn’t something to shy away from), but Peter keeps sending him little grins and they keep squeezing each other’s hands back and forth at random points in the conversation and it almost feels like a secret language that only the two of them know.

Harley doesn’t think they’ll have a moment alone with six people in a smaller space, but they get a minute to themselves, in Peter’s room, when MJ is changing in the bathroom and Ned and Tony are helping May clean up, and it’s supposed to be a sleepover, they’re supposed to be putting on pajamas for the movie night they’re about to have, but they’re still holding hands and Peter looks at him and Harley wants—

He moves, thoughtless and unsure, and he ducks his head and presses his lips to the curve of Peter’s cheek and he lingers there because he doesn’t know what else to do, and when he pulls away he feels a little breathless and Peter’s face is a little pink and Harley asks, “Is that… was that okay?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, a little hoarse and quiet. “Can, um… can I do the same thing, but—but to you?”

That breathless feeling increases tenfold and he just nods, can’t find his voice no matter how hard he tries, and he feels frozen to the spot when Peter uses the hand that isn’t holding Harley’s to reach up and carefully turn Harley’s head slightly to the side, rising up to fill the slight height difference that showed up with Harley’s recent growth spurt, and he hesitates a moment, hovers a few mere centimeters away and waits, just to make sure that Harley hasn’t changed his mind, and then he leans in and he presses a kiss to Harley’s cheek that almost feels like fire, a tingling warmth forming where lips meet skin, and Peter lingers, too, but he does it purposefully, stays there for just a moment, before lowering back to stand normally and looking up at Harley in silent question. Harley’s heart is thundering in his chest and he thinks he might be shaking and something within him insists that he should be repulsed by what just happened but the majority of him is aching for it to happen again.

“Okay?” Peter murmurs when Harley stays silent, a spark of worry forming in his eyes, like he’s afraid, terrified of doing something that Harley isn’t okay with, isn’t ready for, and Harley knows that what he feels is love, already told Peter that, too, but that love in his chest increases, grows stronger, louder and more insistent and seems to swallow Harley whole, consumes him and surrounds him until it’s all he feels, until the only thought in his brain is a broken record of i love you i love you i love you i love you.

“Yeah,” he manages to respond, chokes it out, past the lump in his throat. “Definitely okay.”

Peter relaxes at that, clearly, visibly relieved, and he sports a little smile that makes Harley’s heart skip a beat and he doesn’t say anything else about it, just squeezes Harley’s hand once and asks, “Do you wanna change in here, or do you wanna use the bathroom after MJ gets out?”

That’s all there is, and Harley should be used to it by now, should be accustomed to just how incredible and thoughtful and understanding that Peter is, should not feel so surprised when Peter seems to know when to let a topic linger and when to move on to something else, but Harley still feels floored by it every single time. He feels floored when Peter doesn’t try to hold Harley’s hand during the movie night, like he somehow seems to know that Harley is feeling a little too overwhelmed from the cheek kissing to be able to maintain contact like that. He feels floored when he finds his notebook sitting on his bed a few days later, in the same condition it was in when he gave it to Peter, except for an additional note written on the inside cover, a note that just says, **_I know you said this is for me, but I think you should keep writing. When it’s full, let me know if you still want me to read it, and I promise that I’ll read every single word._**

Even more than that, though, he feels floored when they go back to holding hands, Peter not bringing up the cheek kissing, not trying to initiate it again, seems to be able to read Harley like an open book and knows that anything other than hand holding needs to be initiated by Harley himself. And it’s so scary, wanting to do—wanting the kissing, and the more than holding hands, but finding himself choking on the words when he tries to bring it up, tries to say that it is something he wants but isn’t sure how to let himself want it, isn’t sure how to accept that kind of affection, doesn’t know how he had the courage to do it before. He thinks about it for weeks upon weeks, staring down at the empty pages of his notebook, and he realizes that there’s something they have in common—the thinking. Harley can’t seem to write the things that he wants to when he’s thinking too much. He also can’t seem to do any of the things he wants to do when he’s thinking too much, either. His brain goes into overdrive and he thinks of all the things he shouldn’t, remembers all the things he was told, taught to believe, forced to listen to, over and over again.

When he kissed Peter on the cheek, he wasn’t thinking. When he reaches over to hold Peter’s hand, he isn’t thinking. He’s just feeling, and letting those feelings lead his actions, and that’s it. That’s all he needs. Until he’s able to change the way his brain fights against him, he can’t rely on his thoughts.

He wonders if he’s the only one who struggles with not being able to trust his own thoughts, and he brings it up to Tony, during dinner one night, when it’s just the two of them sitting on the couch and chowing down on pizza. He takes a bite of his slice of four cheese and he gives himself a minute to chew it and he sounds like he isn’t afraid when he asks, “Do you ever not trust your own brain?”

Tony freezes, blinks a few times, and then picks up his napkin to wipe the grease off of his hands. He sounds more curious than concerned when he responds with, “What do you mean?”

“Like…” Harley shrugs a bit helplessly, not sure how to word it, how to phrase what he wants to say. “I guess, just, like—like, your brain tells you things that you know you shouldn’t listen to, but it’s also… it’s your _brain,_ you know? And you should be able to listen to your brain, right? But…”

He trails off, doesn’t know where to go from there, what else he can say to explain it, but Tony seems to understand. “Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes, it isn’t… it isn’t really simple. Brains react to trauma in different ways, and what you’ve been through… kid, you went through some bad stuff, and your brain doesn’t always learn the things that it should. Sometimes, it learns the wrong things, and you have to teach it again, have it learn what it’s supposed to learn, and it’s not easy, but…” He pauses for a moment, lets out a soft sigh, and then tells Harley, “You know, Peter told me something once, and it actually kind of stuck with me. Apparently, it’s something he saw online, but it’s actually—it’s good to hear, and it’s that your first thought is what you were taught to believe, and your second thought is actually you.”

Harley sniffles, frowns down at his plate. “What does that mean, though?”

“It means,” Tony says, “that when you see something, you have your initial thought, and then you have another, right? For instance, when I see… okay, yeah, a good example—when I see broccoli, my first thought it that it’s disgusting, because I grew up hearing the other kids complaining about it and I formed an opinion about it even though I’d never actually had it before. But then I tried it, and I liked it, so after my first thought says that it’s disgusting, my second thought reminds me that it’s okay. My first thought is what I grew up thinking because of what everyone else said, and my second thought is the opinion that I formed about it by myself, without the influence of anybody else. Does that make sense?”

For a long, long moment, Harley lets those words simmer in the air, flips them over in his mind and examines them over and over again, makes sense of them as well as he can and then looks at them again to make sure that he really gets it. And it does make sense, is the thing—it adds up in a way that most things never tend to do, clicks within him with a resounding sense of truth and almost shifts reality as Harley knows it, because that means—that means that Harley isn’t really damaged, per se. He’s learned the wrong things, and now he has to learn them again, but he has to learn them the right way.

It’s not him that’s wrong, it’s what he’s been taught. and that—that’s not really new information, is the thing. He kind of knew that, was already sort of aware of it, but being able to take Tony’s words and reinstate it, build a real foundation for it, actually _believe_ it… that’s it. That’s the difference.

“It makes sense,” he tells Tony, a little choked up. “So, I’m not—I’m not just fucked up?”

Tony goes soft around the eyes and holds up an arm until Harley leans into it, allows himself to be tucked into Tony’s side and comforted. “You’re not fucked up, Harley,” he promises. “You’ve been hurt, and working through that takes a long time, but you’re not fucked up. You’re just growing and doing the best with what you were given and I’m so proud of you for making it this far, okay?”

Harley nods, brings up a hand to wipe at a tear and murmurs, “Thanks, Dad.”

And that—that is something new. That’s not something Harley has said before, isn’t something he ever thought he’d be able to say, no matter how much he thinks it, no matter how much it rings true within him. For a moment, there’s a chilling strike of fear that zips up his spine, and he isn’t sure what he expects, but all Tony does is pull Harley closer and tell him, “Whenever you need me, bud.”

It’s a promise without saying that it’s a promise. It’s exactly what Harley needs to hear.

“So,” Tony adds a moment later, tone more light, teasing. “Any updates on you and Pete? I already started a Pinterest board for your wedding, and I think I’ve finally figured out the color scheme—”

“You’re the _worst,”_ Harley whines, pushing Tony away from him, but all Tony does is laugh, and Harley feels light with it, can’t help the smile that pulls at his lips and grows on his face as Tony pulls him back into a side embrace, pressing a kiss to Harley’s temple that is full of nothing but fatherly love. Harley shoves him away again, but it’s not with any voice in his head telling him to, not because of a horrible feeling making him need his space. He shoves Tony away and lets out a laugh that rumbles through his chest and makes him feel _happy,_ and he doesn’t think of Darcy, the mom who couldn’t love him how he is, and he doesn’t think of Rose Hill, or the church, or any of the things that normally try to haunt him, lurking in the corners of his mind. He just thinks about this, about the father figure that he has, the one that cares about him in the way that a parent is supposed to, and he thinks about Peter, who is over in Queens and probably patrolling and definitely going to spam Harley with texts about how it went as soon as he gets home, and he thinks about Ned and MJ and Rhodey and Pepper and Happy and he feels _good._

He feels _loved._

“Actually,” he admits to Tony, “there was a—a thing, that happened, on Peter’s birthday.”

Tony hums. “The hand holding? Yeah, we all saw that, kid. That’s not news.”

Harley shakes his head, bites down on the inside of his cheek and doesn’t feel like he’s choking on his words when he says, “No, it was—it was after that. It was a small thing, but it was… it felt like a big deal. Like, it just, um—I just, I kissed him on the cheek? And then he did the same thing to me, and it—that was all that happened, but it was—I don’t know. It probably sounds stupid, but—”

“Stupid?” Tony repeats incredulously, looking like an excited teenager at a sleepover as he turns his entire body to face Harley, grin wide and genuine. “Kid, that’s awesome!” When Harley just shrugs his shoulders, Tony insists, “No, I’m serious! Harley, I don’t think I need to tell you that touch is sort of a big thing with you, and the fact that you felt comfortable enough for that to happen—that’s amazing. Seriously, I—I want to say that I’m proud of you, because I am, but I don’t know if it’s actually appropriate in this situation. But, whatever—I’m proud of you, and I’m showing you the Pinterest board. Harley, sit down—no, Harley, come here, I’m being—Harley, look! What do you mean, am I being serious? Yes, I am! Look at the damn Pinterest board or I’m grounding you. Harley James—”

(Maybe this is the turning point. Maybe this is just another step to true recovery. Harley isn’t sure what he should classify it as, doesn’t know how to describe it, doesn’t know if describing it is even possible.

All he knows is that this—him, running out of the room with a cackle as Tony waves his phone in the air and insists on showing him the actual Pinterest board that he’s been working on—this is something good. This is something that Harley wants to grab onto and remember the feeling of for the rest of his life.

This is home, with his dad, talking about the boy he loves, and he never wants to forget it.)


	3. there was once a time that i feared the sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy pride month

College starts off as a terrifying concept looming ahead, a future obstacle to deal with later. It starts with a casual conversation in class, to a meeting with the counselor about what schools he wants to go to, to Ned talking about working on his essay for his application to MIT. It goes from something far away and perceptively unachievable to a very present mass weighing down his shoulders. The fear presses down on his chest until it feels like his rib cage is about to give out under the pressure it provides.

“I don’t know where I want to go,” Peter tells him, when he’s staying at the tower one night—staying in Harley’s room, too, because sometimes, more often now than it used to be, all Harley really wants is to be close to him, and on a good night (he has many more good nights now, at eighteen, than he did even just a year ago) the two of them can curl together like a normal couple does.

Harley has his arm around Peter’s waist and their legs are tangled together. “Neither do I,” he says.

Peter brushes fingers through Harley’s hair and hums. “Mr. Stark really wants us to go to MIT with Ned.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harley says with a sigh, letting his eyes drift shut as he melts into the affectionate contact. This is about as far as he’s been able handle with touch so far, but compared to the fact that he was having mild anxiety attacks over holding hands last year, he thinks it’s safe to say that this is a drastic improvement. “I’m not against going to MIT, is the thing. I just can’t tell if I want to go for me, or if I want to go because I feel like I’d be letting him down if I go somewhere else, you know?”

Peter frowns. “You could never let Mr. Stark down, Harls.”

Harley doesn’t respond for a moment, his thoughts sort of drifting into the fear of ever doing just that. It’s the only thing he hasn’t been able to really shake with Tony—he loves him like a father, has been calling him exclusively Dad for over six months now (after a solid six months of bouncing back and forth between Dad and Tony before that), and when there’s anything on his mind, he has no problems opening up to Tony about whatever it is. But that terrifying thought of doing something that could break all of it, no matter how much he tells himself that it’s not something that could be broken, is ever present in his day to day life. He thought his love for his mother was unshakable, thought that she would always be there for him, and that had been thrown out of the window because he told her he was gay. It’s hard to convince himself that there’s nothing he could do to ruin what he has now.

“I don’t think I want to go to MIT,” Peter says, after a few moments of Harley sinking further into his thoughts. He always seems to be able to tell when there needs to be a subject change, can seemingly read Harley like a book and always knows what Harley needs. “I want to stay in New York.”

That makes Harley relax, just a little bit. “I don’t like the idea of leaving here,” he admits softly.

Peter lets out a slow breath. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, neither do I.”

If Harley had his notebook—his latest of many, as it’s become habit, now, to sit down at his desk at the end of the day and scribble out things that make little sense to anyone other than himself—he thinks he would capture how he feels right now on the page. He’s written about it hundreds of times, about being close to Peter, wanting to be closer, goes into detail about the pitter patter of his heartbeat the few times that they’ve pressed lips to cheek, but he’ll never tire of trying to put these moments into words. Opening his eyes and looking at Peter and seeing the way his eyes sort of glimmer brown and gold under the lighting of a singular lamp, knows how he would describe them, as pure as the earth and as dark as the soil they stand upon, scans over the bridge of his nose and the way his lips twitch as he thinks. Listens to the hum of his chest as he slowly says, “I was looking… I wanted to see options, for New York, you know? And I thought—I—I _think,_ y’know, that… ESU looks like a good school. Have you heard much about it before? ‘Cause I’ve never heard much about it, either, until I looked it up, and it’s—”

“ESU?” Harley questions, a tad bit confused. His list of colleges has always been top notch, the highest of the high end, reinforced over and over by Tony—who means well, really, boasts constantly about how his kid is beyond smart enough for the elite universities, that they don’t deserve him, really—but it still put that pressure there, the fear that going anywhere else will just make Tony hate him.

“Empire State,” Peter elaborates, turning his head so he’s looking as Harley and their noses sort of brush and Harley thinks, _I want to kiss you,_ but they’ve never gone further than brief brushes of lips against the curve of cheekbones and, as much as he wants to be ready for more, he’s afraid he’ll try and quickly find out that he isn’t ready yet. He wants so much and he feels elated and joyful with how much he wants but the dread always seems to pull at his gut until he feels sick, like part of him, the ugly parts that he’s struggling to unravel and relearn new ways, hates him for being stuck on this still, like this—liking boys, loving Peter—was only ever supposed to be temporary and he’s meant to drop it and go back to Rose Hill and be the straight boy that his mother raised him the be. Tony has told him that it’s a slow process, the unlearning and relearning what you were raised to believe, but he’s been in New York for years and developed a crush on Peter the moment he met him only a few months after moving into the tower and he feels like he must be permanently broken. Maybe, no matter how long he tries, it’s something he’ll never be able to really fix.

(“There’s nothing to _fix,”_ Tony tells him, a smear of ketchup on his chin because he always eats chicken nuggets like he’s still a child despite already being in his fifties. “You’re not broken, Harley. You’ve been hurt in a way that no one ever should be, and sometimes, it takes years to really heal. You have to give yourself time, bud. I mean, you’ve already made so much progress—just keep going and you’ll make more.” He says it like it’s some kind of easy, to just keep going, but sometimes Harley thinks that it’s not worth the effort, that, by the time he’s somewhat of a normal person again, it’ll be too late. Peter will have gotten tired of how timid Harley is, tired of always asking if it’s okay to hold his hand, to touch him in the most simplest of ways. Harley—and all of his problems—are quite the handful to deal with.)

Peter doesn’t seem to notice that Harley’s mind is drifting—or, more likely, he’s _definitely_ noticed and acts like he hasn’t while continuing to speak, in an attempt to reel Harley back to the present and out of his own head. “It’s in Manhattan,” Peter tells him. “I guess it’s, uh—it’s a fairly new university, in comparison to most of the bigger ones, you know? But it looks perfect, or, um—as close to perfect as it could get, you know? Their science degrees are incredible, and the engineering programs look amazing, and I—I don’t want to assume, you know? I don’t want to assume you want to go to the same college as me, and if you don’t want to go to ESU, that’s fine, but I was—I was wondering if you’d wanna go on a tour of the place with me to check it out. They accept late applications, since their still fairly new and want to build their numbers, so we could—we could take the tour and then just—think about it, for a month or two, before having to decide, you know? If that—I mean, if you’d be okay with that—”

Three years since he met Peter Parker, and he still feels floored by just how thoughtful he is, by how easily he thinks of other people—thinks of Harley, of his comfort and how he feels, never pushes where he shouldn’t push and is gentle when it’s necessary. Harley has only choked out the words, the I love you’s, a total of four times since first confessing a year and a half ago, but it’s even more prominent in the beating of his swelling heart now than it was before, seems to grow just that much stronger every single day that passes. And maybe it’s that, maybe it’s the love that triples in size within himself and the way his mind seems to only be able to focus on how much love there is—maybe it’s just because he thinks he might be ready, thinks it’s worth a shot, thinks that he wants to do it and he keeps thinking of reasons why he shouldn’t and what if he just shoved that aside and did it anyway, right?

He cuts off Peter’s adorable, _wonderful_ rambling by moving, no thoughts, no reason—just ducks his head a bit and tilts forward until their foreheads bump, their noses nudge each other’s, and then, after a breath of pause, their lips press together in—their first kiss, despite how long it’s been. Their first kiss. Harley’s first kiss ever, Peter’s first with him, three years after they met, over a year since Peter nearly died at the (mechanical) hands (claws?) of Doc Ock and Harley fought through the fear to confess how he felt because he was terrified of losing Peter before he ever could. Some might say—many, really, would definitely say—that it’s a long time coming, but Harley’s almost inclined to believe it’s too soon.

It’s in his head, the wrong thinking—the lessons he was taught as a child, the learning he’s been slowly undoing and rebooting since Tony first told him that, sometimes, brains learn the wrong things and need to learn again. He hears it now, the sneers of the priest and his own voice and something he thinks might be what he assumes God would sound like, spitting at him to stop, telling him that it’s wrong, it’s bad, it’s a disgrace to love a boy, to kiss a boy, to want a boy the way Harley wants Peter—but this is—this is Peter Parker, and nothing about Peter Parker is wrong, or bad, or disgraceful. He’s _good._ He’s _pure._

And he hums, a shocked little noise high in his throat that seems to be mostly air and little sound, stock still and stiff as a board for a moment before pulling back with wide, awe-filled eyes. He looks at Harley and Harley stares back with his heart thudding almost _angrily_ in his chest and, despite the sounds and the voices and the bad, bad, bad, being chanted in his head, all Harley really wants is to do it again.

“Are you—” Peter stops, hushed and hoarse, and—shaking hands, pressed to knees. Restrained, Harley realizes. Holding himself back for Harley’s sake. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

Not particularly, should be the answer. Probably shouldn’t be, but definitely should be, too. It’s conflicting and confusing and Harley itches to write about it, but that can wait until—until later. After this. When Peter goes home tomorrow and Harley’s head is clouded with him. He has to clear his throat because his entire chest seems to be suffocating him and nods, just once. “Yeah,” he says.

Peter still pauses, because it’s been so long—months over months over months over months, with just holding hands, just hugging and cuddling, first only on the bad nights, then always on the good, then all the time, a few occasions of kisses pressed to the apple of cheeks and a proximity so close that it’s impossible not to think of the what if’s—but never this. Not yet, anyway. Hasn’t been the right time.

“I want—” and Harley chokes on a breath, feels it get caught in the back of his throat but he works through it, over it, past it, because he needs to say it, manages to tell Peter, “I want you.”

Which is everything. Harley wants everything from Peter, everything that is willing to be given, but still, Peter seems way. “You have me,” he murmurs, gentle eyes looking like melted chocolate being mixed with warmth and love and a sense of home. “You don’t have to—if you’re not ready, you don’t—”

Harley thinks that, sometimes, talking and thinking go hand in hand, and they can be a burden on action. When he thinks too much, he spirals—leads himself down a path of the past and all the things he’s teaching himself not to believe anymore, until he’s found a list of reasons why he belongs in Hell and should never feel a drip of happiness in his lifetime. In a similar way, he thinks Peter is quite the same, only his spiral comes in the form of verbalizing words that he speaks too fast to keep up with, so worried about everyone other than himself that he will talk himself into a hole just to make the other person content. He does it often, when he’s worried that he’s been out of the apartment too often and apologizes to May, when he believes he’s neglecting Spider-Man duties or lab time and stammers out his intentions to do better to a bewildered Tony who clearly thinks that Peter could do with a break from both.

If given the chance, Peter would talk himself to an early grave. Harley could think until he’s turned to dust from old age and sorrow. They differ in many ways, more than Harley could possibly count, but there’s something to draw there—a connection, an understanding of sorts. Peter knows to help bring a stop to Harley’s spiral of thinking, and Harley believes he should return the favor.

He leans over and he kisses Peter again before the talking can become a spiral of words, doesn’t know how to do it, really—the simple, logical thing is just—lips on lips, really. Never has he thought of how to do more than that, and perhaps, really, more than that is a bit too much for now, but this is—something. A first step that he feels run warn down his spine, the way they linger there, the way that Peter’s fingers freeze where they had been combing through Harley’s hair and seem to grip just the slightest bit tighter.

It isn’t long, just a few moments of nothing other than this, before they seem to lean back in unison, just a bit, and Harley keeps his eyes shut for a couple more seconds just to bask in the good feeling that rises in his chest, louder and more prominent than any of the negativity that’s still trying to rear it’s head in his mind. He thinks there may not be a string of words to explain how he truly feels, but he knows he’ll still try to write it down, over and over and over again until he gets it right.

(He writes a lot, it seems, about the good feelings, the good days, the good nights. Writes of how he feels welcome and accepted when Tony throws popcorn at him while they watch a movie, because Harley told a joke that was stupid and _definitely_ a pun and _absolutely_ influenced by Peter’s humor. He jots down descriptions of sunsets from the balcony and midnight ice cream on the roof and board games on school nights when he should be asleep but managed to sway Tony into playing with him anyway. Waxes poetic of fatherly brown eyes and how they differ from the glimmer of gold in Peter’s iris’s, talks of two kinds of love, the family kind and the romantic kind and how he once spit blood onto bathroom tiles in middle school and cried over a poem that talked about liking boys and now—now he has a home in New York and _real_ father, a _loving_ father, and he has a boyfriend that has never rushed him and understands him and he is content here, he is safe here, the opposite of life in Rose Hill—a contrast to Tennessee.

Peter had told him that there are other poems—that there are _happier_ poems.

Harley now knows that he writes them.)

When it comes down to it, graduation can be summarized fairly simply, doesn’t require a sonnet or a lengthy description or play by play recount of events. Harley forgets most of it as soon as it ends, can’t seem to recall any of the details once he steps into the sun and has to block the light from his eyes to see through the crowd. There’s noise all around him, family members spouting praise and love to all the kids dressed in caps and gowns that look just like his, and he stands in the middle of it with furrowed brows and squinted eyes, unsure of which way to go, how to even start looking for the few familiar faces he has. He thinks, for a moment, that he spots MJ—swept up into a hug with a man that is undoubtedly her father, a man that looks so much like her and looks close to tears as he holds her tight, sees her roll her eyes and smile softly before Harley turns away, feeling like it isn’t his moment to witness.

He had sat rows upon rows away from his friends, from Peter. He knows that, remembers the shifting in his seat as he waited for his name to be called. Remembers shouting, without really meaning to shout, when he heard the names he knows, clapped for them until his hands felt overheated and turned red.

Ned smiles at him, through the crowd, while his mother presses a messy, motherly kiss to his cheek and coos at him. Most teens would be embarrassed, probably, but Ned just grins, seems boastful about the love radiating from his mom, soaks it in and glows with it. Harley smiles back, because Ned, though not nearly as close to him as he is to Peter, is undoubtedly one of the kindest souls he has ever met and Harley hopes they stay in each other’s lives, knows that Ned and Peter will never fall out of touch and wishes that Peter will always be in Harley’s life and thinks that will insure them a forever sort of connection.

When Harley’s name had been called, there had been a sharp whistle and a hoarse yell that stood out among the applause. The whistle, Harley knows, had been Tony—looks out and found the familiar glasses and the suit and saw Tony wave at him like a regular father would. The yell was all Peter, and with that, Peter had launched out of his seat and clapped the loudest out of anyone else, grinned so wide it looked like it hurt and Harley had to look away from him to avoid tripping up the steps for the stage.

It feels a bit overwhelming, the abundance of people surrounding him. He spins and the crowd doesn’t seem to have an end. Midtown is, by no means, a small school, but—but it hadn’t felt quite so large while walking down the halls, weaving between the student body and holding Peter’s hand to make sure they stayed together. He knows it had felt fairly huge during his first month, in comparison to Rose Hill High, of course, but he got used to it, really—each day made him forget how small everything used to be for him. Here, it’s different. There’s not such thing as small in New York City, really.

(There was a moment—sort of, perhaps, feeling longer in Harley’s mind than it had actually been—after Peter’s name was called. A silent lapse, like the world was collectively holding its breath, because it has been a battle. For all of them, it has, but for Peter—for Peter, high school was never just high school. For Peter, it was maintaining his grades to keep his scholarship because his aunt and his uncle couldn’t afford to keep him there on their own. For Peter, it was losing a father figure, it was blood on his hands that he still saw when trudging the halls. For Peter, it was responsibility—saving lives, prioritizing everyone and everything over himself and letting his grades slip in result. For Peter, it was forgetting that school matters and learning again and missing classes because he was bleeding out from patrol and hiding his limp when walking into class and still having the brightest smile in the entire room.

Peter’s name echoed after being spoken into the microphone, resonated within Harley’s chest and seemed to shake the earth beneath them, and then—forward motion. Everyone, all of them, clapping. That sharp whistle that had zinged through the air when Harley got his diploma sounded again, and somewhere, louder than most of the noise, May Parker cheered. Harley got to his feet, saw Ned and MJ do it, too, out of the corner of his eyes, and he hollered for the boy he loves, made noise and applauded until his hands were raw and stomped his feet just to be that little bit louder. No volume could, realistically, capture just how much Harley was trying to put into the sounds, but it was all he could do in the moment.

When Peter took his diploma in hand, his grin was sheepish and wobbly and his eyes glimmered with tears and Harley felt a tear of his own roll down his cheek. It dripped from his chin and fell to the ground and his heart roared in his chest and he felt, not for the first time, completely enamored by the raw strength and capability of Peter Parker, felt lucky to even, somehow, _know_ him, let alone—)

_“Harley!”_

They collide in the middle of a crowded parking lot full of families and friends congratulating each other, and Harley holds onto him like he never plans to let him go. Peter’s arms are hooked over his shoulders and behind his neck and he must be on his toes to reach but Harley doesn’t care, presses his nose behind Peter’s ear and curls his arms around his waist and regrets each and every day that he was afraid to let himself have this, aches for himself from just a year ago, when touch like this was so far out of the question that it still made his stomach curl. Instead of queasy, Harley now feels whole, lets out a shaky breath and doesn’t pay any mind to the way his cap is pushed off his head due to him ducking his head to tuck his nose under the hinge of Peter’s jaw because it makes him feel like they’re closer, somehow.

Peter moves a hand, buries fingers in the mess of Harley’s hair and lets out a breathless sort of laugh that is the only thing Harley hears, every other noise far away and muffled in comparison. “Harley,” he says again, softer, not a shout or an exclamation, but a murmur of a name that brushes past his lips and wraps around them like a blanket, encloses them in their own moment. “We did it. I can’t believe we did it.”

 _“You_ did it,” Harley corrects—because high school was easy for him. He’s smart and he didn’t go through each day as a vigilante with a secret identity. It was hardly a challenge, really—especially once he started at Midtown. He wants to make it clear—wants Peter to be proud of himself.

But Peter shakes his head. “We,” he insists, pulls back from the hug just enough to meet Harley’s eyes, a flaming, intense sort of heat in his gaze. _“We_ did it. You and me. Both of us. Okay?”

Harley swallows around a lump that grows sudden and heavy in the back of his throat, can’t think of how to string together a response that really captures the skipping beat of his heart and instead leans their foreheads together and releases a breath that seems to feel _weighted_ in his lungs. Peter blinks once, slowly, brings a hand over and around to cradle Harley’s face with his palm and nothing else matters but them. Harley swallows again, forces the lump down, down, until he can speak around it and softly, softly, softly say, “I don’t—I don’t really like to think about me without you. So. So, yeah—we. We did it.”

Peter’s features shimmer with adoration. He bumps his nose into Harley’s and very gently says, “I know it’s—it’s new, and it’s totally up to you and your pace and what you’re comfortable with doing and when and how and—but, I just—I love you, y’know? I really, _really_ love you, and I just—want to kiss you, probably more than—more than I’ve ever wanted to, right now. But, it’s—I’m not—I just—”

“Maybe,” Harley cuts in, wanting—wanting, so much, more than anything, to be able to do just that, but suddenly feeling the heat radiating from just how many people surround them and, knowing, that he doesn’t feel—comfortable, safe, both—showing that kind of affection where so many can see. He clears his throat and bumps Peter’s nose with his own like it’s a secret language. “Maybe at home instead?”

“Yeah,” Peter nods, swipes the pad of his thump over the curve of Harley’s cheekbone and then pulls back, puts space between them that makes it easier to breathe, _shines_ with his blinding grin. “Yeah.”

It’s something that—like, really, with most things so far—once Harley is able to overcome that reasons not to once, it becomes progressively easier to convince himself to allow himself the good thing. The good things, really—many, all. Tells himself that he has earned the right to feel loved, that he is worthy of Tony’s fatherly hugs and that there is nothing wrong with kissing Peter Parker. Starts the summer before college with a press of lips a few times a week, because it’s—it’s wonderful. It’s simple, it’s easy, despite how long it felt impossible, but that’s just it—at one point in time, it felt impossible. It felt like something Harley would never be able to stomach, so far out of his comfort zone, so far from what he thought he’d be okay with. The first time he met Peter, he was so overwhelmed and terrified of being so close to a pretty boy that it had quite literally made him sick, and now—now he kisses him. Sometimes. At first.

Sometimes—a few times a week—turns to almost every day, as the summer goes on. They spend more time in the tower than anywhere else, sometimes with their friends, mostly without because MJ is starting at NYU with a summer program and is already busy with classes and Ned has multiple trips out of the city with family, mostly to go see other family, and isn’t available very often. But Peter and Harley, they aren’t all that busy—no summer courses or programs for them, no trips out of New York, nothing like that. Just three months, the entire summer, to do whatever the hell they want because there’s nothing else to do, and they choose, mostly, to just… sit on the couch, lay in Harley’s bed, watch movies, shows, blast music and dance with each other and try to throw popcorn into each other’s mouths. It becomes harder and harder to resist the—the want, the urge, to kiss Peter with all the time they spend alone. There’s still, under his skin, that itch and that fear and—it won’t fully go away, really. It, likely, with never entirely disappear. But Harley believes he is becoming an expert at ignoring those things. Starts to kiss Peter more, almost every day, then every day, then—more than once a day. Because he’s able to. Because Peter always seems to want to kiss him, too, and—and there’s no reason not to do it.

Peter, unsurprisingly, kisses Harley the same way he does everything with Harley—with care, with generosity, gives Harley the reigns to set his own pace and never tries to hurry him along, never pushes or demands or complains. He takes what Harley is willing to give and reciprocates it with ease. Never less, and never more, seems happily content with anything, with _everything,_ that Harley is comfortable with.

Harley writes most when Peter is on patrol, has Friday giving him updates to make sure Peter isn’t overdoing it, isn’t hurt beyond the standard bruises and scrapes he collects every day, opens his notebook and stares at the page until his mind feels fuzzy and less overwhelmed with all the thoughts that try to stop him from just feeling the way he feels. He poises his pen over the paper and lets out a long, slow sort of breath, until all the weight in his chest is gone and he feels like he could float away like a balloon, and he starts to write. Poetry is, still, the focal point of his interest—all different kinds, traditions and more abstract ideas of what poetry is scribbled down between the lines—but, sometimes, what he writes isn’t something he would call poetry. Sometimes, it’s little notes, for himself, for other people, for no one in particular, for the world as a whole. Sometimes, it’s a list of words that resonate within him but don’t necessarily piece together to form a coherent thought. Sometimes, it’s nothing—an empty page that he looks at for so long that it winds up feelings to significant to mark.

There are a hundred ways he ends up describing what kissing Peter is like. A dance of the souls, meeting through the vulnerable placement of lips on lips, twisting and turning together in—not a battle, not a fight, but a team-up, of sorts—combining forces, becoming one, if only for a moment. The surrender of trust, the crumbling of walls, the innate gesture of handing over a dagger and knowing, somehow, with utmost certainty, that the blade will never be used against you, only to protect, and even then—only if you really want it to be used. Limericks and love songs and letters that reflect the very blood that Harley bleeds, the sentences and the stringing of words and every little thing that flows through his veins.

“That’s…” Peter trails off, when Harley opens to a random page in his latest notebook and pushes it into Peter’s palms to read. His eyes are wide and full of awe and love and—they’re stunning, really, though this is something Harley has known for quite some time. He looks at the page in front of him, scans over the words, looks up at Harley with a breathless smile. “How do you _do_ that?”

Harley, although smart, feels almost stupidly confused. “How do I do what?”

“This,” Peter says, gestures with one hand at the paper and shifts his weight, the action minuscule and barely there yet still, still, placing them just a few centimeters closer together where they sit on the sofa, a movie playing, forgotten on the TV screen. “The way you write things. It’s—insane. Amazing.”

“It is?”

Peter laughs, the sound spluttered and genuine and surprised, like he’s caught off guard, in a sense, by the genuine confusion that crinkles Harley’s nose and tugs at the ends of his lips. “It definitely is,” he says, eyes wider than before, but also, somehow, not—crinkles in the corners, smile lines, his features so open and warm and fond. “I almost think you should double major in poetry. You’re just—incredible at it.”

This is news. Harley doesn’t write to be good at writing—he just. Connected, somehow, to the artform, thanks to the poem, the Richard Siken one. He thought he found himself in something that someone else had written, and when he lost that meaning, he felt like he lost himself—not that he ever really had much of himself to begin with. And he searched, then, to find himself again—to find all of him, not just the bits and pieces that he had already held before, and he couldn’t find what he was looking for, and he—he almost lost the boy he fell in love with, and Tony told him to just write, to not think, to try and try again. It’s not to be a good writer. It’s not to become a famous poet. It’s to just—unload. Everything, really.

Good things, too, because, sometimes, even those good things become a weight.

“I guess,” Harley says, a bit slow in his annunciation, like he’s sounding out the words as he goes. “I guess I just… I write it. I don’t—I don’t know how I do it. I just do, and it’s just—that.”

Peter’s eyes dance, and he looks back to the notebook, asks, “Can I read more?”

And there is no one else in this world that Harley would be more willing to have look over the essentials of his very soul, so he nods, doesn’t really hesitate to do so, doesn’t need to think about it, just raises his chin and drops it and responds with a simple, “Yeah, of course,” and relishes in each reaction he gets.

Kissing, soon, becomes—regular. Becomes expected, almost normal. Harley kisses Peter the moment he sees him in the morning, whether it’s after he’s slept at the tower and they’ve both woken up with tangled hair and sleep heavy gazes, or if it’s one of those mornings where Peter comes over from the apartment, is carrying a drink tray with two coffees for himself—because he always drinks two—and a hot chocolate for Harley because he never likes coffee from the coffee shops, always prefers just making it for himself at home, and Harley steps into his space the very second that Peter walks out of the elevator and seals their lips together, listens and enjoys that _hum_ that Peter always makes, a content, happy sort of noise.

Tony gets fed up with it pretty quickly, lets out an exasperated sort of groan from where he’s leaning against the counter and drinking his own coffee, already in a suit, dressed to the nines for the multiple meetings he has that day, looks at them with a crinkled up nose and a faux scowl and tells them, “Can’t you just—wait until I leave to do that? I prefer _not_ to see teens making out in the morning.”

(It’s—mostly—played up for fun. To tease them. Harley knows this because Tony never fails to tell him so when they’re having a lazy evening. “I’m happy for you,” Tony assures him, pulling Harley into a side hug and ruffling up his hair, just for the hell of it. “Seriously. It’s amazing, seeing how far you’ve come, in general and—with him, too. That doesn’t mean I want to see it when I’m trying to wake up, but I’m seriously overjoyed that you’re so comfortable. I’m proud of you, kiddo. You know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Harley nods, rests his cheek on Tony’s shoulder and leans into the comfort. “You tell me you’re proud of me every, like—two seconds. For dumb shit, too. Like, I made toast, and you said you were proud of me. I’m literally almost eighteen and you were proud of me for making myself toast.”

Tony shrugs, laughs. “I didn’t know how to make myself toast until I was twenty four,” he says, flashing Harley a wide, cheesy sort of grin. It makes Harley laugh, too.)

And that’s another—obstacle, of sorts, only not an intimidating one, not anymore. Turning eighteen used to feel like a looming shadow standing over the entirety of high school, of childhood in general, but now it’s just a birthday, just another year. Harley has a cake, has a small gathering—Ned and MJ make sure to be there, and May presses a kiss to his cheek and tells him that he deserves only the best of things, and Tony looks like he’s trying not to cry, only to dismiss himself a moment later with a handkerchief clutched between his fingers. No one says anything when, at the end of the night, when everyone starts to leave and Tony announces that it’s getting late, Peter simply follows Harley to his room and doesn’t have to announce that he’s staying over—it’s just. It’s just simple. Of course he’s staying tonight.

Harley finds that he doesn’t want to watch a movie until they fall asleep, doesn’t really want to talk, either, even though he rather enjoys talking to Peter, could talk to him for hours and never feels tired or bored. He isn’t quite sure what he wants as they lay together, resting on their sides and facing each other, scans over Peter’s features in the low lighting of the room while Peter says something that Harley doesn’t really hear, and then he just—he leans in, because that’s something he does now, an action that comes with ease, presses a lingering sort of kiss against Peter’s lips and then—another, when they start to pull away, because he doesn’t want them to pull away. He wants to _keep_ kissing, like, in the movies, in the shows, how people seem to be able to kiss for _hours,_ and Peter is more than willing to give this, cradles Harley’s face in his hands and tilts, slightly, his head, just a bit, and starts to—move, leading, for the first time since they started kissing, and guiding Harley to follow, and he fumbles, a bit, but it doesn’t take very long before he starts to get the hang of it and—it’s still kissing, but it’s, like—it’s the _more_ that Harley had been to scared to try the night he kissed Peter for the first time. That hum rumbles in Peter’s chest, like it always, always, always does when they kiss, but it’s longer, lower, and—different.

For his birthday, Peter gave him a few poetry books that Harley had been eyeing for a while, and he gave him a small collection of new notebooks, too, because Harley’s starting to run out of room in his current one, and a package of Harley’s favorite brand of pens, coming in a wide assortment of colors, and it’s just so simple, so—not at all difficult, but it’s—Peter’s gift, really, is more knowing when Harley needs something and what that something is, even if that something is rather—boring, almost. Tony and May had shared a look of surprise when Harley opened this gift, like they were expecting something huge, some big, grand present that has love etched into every centimeter of it, but that’s not what Harley wants. Peter knows this. Peter knows—always seems to, as well—exactly what Harley’s looking for.

He knows that, when Harley curls fingers into the material of his sweatshirt and lets out a huff of air through his nose, it’s a—complaint, a subtle one, that they aren’t close enough, that the foot of space between them is much too far but he’s feeling unsure of if he should move forward himself. Peter shifts instantly, over, closer, until there’s—little space, barely any, between them anymore. Chest to chest and lips to lips and usually, that’s good, that’s enough to fog Harley’s head and make him sigh with content, but there’s something—like the hum, really—different, about this. Not quite the same. He still wants to be closer even though there is so little room to close, and he isn’t sure—

But Peter always knows, and he moves again, so that they’re chest to chest, hip to hip, throws a leg over Harley’s waist just to really press them into one another, and it’s—better. Still, somehow, not fully enough, but it’s better, and Harley hears a noise, a bit high pitched and—it’s him, it’s his own noise, sort of rumbling in the back of his throat and being muffled by Peter’s mouth on his.

When Peter pulls back, it’s sudden, unexpected, and he’s panting for air, his features tinged, just a bit, with a shade of red that looks almost delicate on his skin. “We should—stop, for a second.”

Harley is reeling with the urge to just lean in again, but Peter has never—not once, at any point in time—done something like that when Harley asked to stop, and Harley has no intentions of doing different, feels a sense of worry curl in his chest and meets molten brown eyes and asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Peter laughs, breathlessly, mostly air. He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair and sinks his teeth into his lower lip for a moment, before adding, “It’s just… really good. Kissing you like that, you know? Kissing you at all is amazing, but that’s—new, and I’m just—I don’t want to get, to get, like—worked up, I guess? I just need a second, and then we can just—keep doing that.”

Harley isn’t stupid, he isn’t— _unaware_ of what that means. It becomes increasingly clear how close Peter really is to _worked up_ when Harley sees the way his adam’s apple bobs as he roughly swallows, sees the slight tremor in his hand as he pushes fingers through his hair and offers Harley a smile. And it’s—mesmerizing, almost, and—and _terrifying_ , too, but in the same way that he once looked up at the tallest roller coaster at the amusement park and was terrified by it and had the best time when he actually went on the ride. The, inexperienced and uncertain, but still intrigued, still—wanting, no matter the fear—that kind of terrified. Expected, really, and not entirely unwelcome. Not… bad, either, to be honest.

But now isn’t—not yet. Not now. Maybe, soon, eventually, yes, because that is—and it’s odd, scary, almost, to even admit it, but—it is something he wants, but—not something he’s really ready for.

Kissing is already lightyears farther than he thought he was ever going to get. More than that can wait.

ESU starts at the beginning of September, after Peter’s birthday has passed, too—celebrated with a Spider-Man themed party, cliché blue and red balloons and party hats that have a web design and even a cake that looks like his mask. Peter laughs so hard when he sees the living room of the penthouse decked out in all of this that he has to press a hand against the wall to keep himself standing, ends up sliding to sit on the floor anyway while cradling his head in his hands, and—starts crying, eventually, bleary eyed and still grinning when he looks back up again, tears rolling down his cheeks and features blindingly bright.

(“I can’t believe,” he starts to say, chokes off with a mixture of a laugh and a sob, then tries again and manages to say, “I can’t believe this just— _exists._ People have—they have Spider-Man parties?”

“Kids looks up to you,” Tony tells him, sitting next to him on the floor, cross cross apple sauce and everything, pulls Peter into a side hug and props his chin on the crown of Peter’s head. “I actually had to order this stuff online, like, three weeks ago ‘cause it was all sold out in stores. You’re popular, bud.”

Ned pops a Spidey confetti canon and grins as the red and blue falls around him, seems to interrupt a cute moment and doesn’t give a shit about it. “This is _awesome._ Like—Like, _next level_ awesome.”

It makes Peter laugh again—no sob mixed in this time—and get back on his feet to enjoy his party.)

There’s no rule, like most universities, to live on campus their first year, but Tony’s gift to them—a sort of compromise, of some sort, or just a simple present, or—something, a mix of both—is to give them their own floor of the tower. May, surprisingly, is okay with it when Peter turns to her with wide eyes, brushes nonexistent dust from the shoulders of his shirt to avoid meeting his eyes and tells him, “It’s just for the school year, like a normal dorm would be. You’ll be back to your room at the apartment in the summer, and you’ll come by for dinner every Sunday, so it’s not like you’re leaving me forever.”

“It’s part of—” Tony waves a hand, vague and not at all helpful in his explanation. “It’s part of the college experience. Being away from parental supervision, or whatever. But, you know—you two are a bit special in that regard. One of you is literally a teenage superhero and the other has been spotted coming and going from the tower so much that the media has decided you’re my secret child, which—not too far off, since the whole—adopting thing, y’know, but—you still deserve that freedom and that space of your own that’s all yours and nobody else’s, so—middle ground. I’m right upstairs if you need me, and Friday is programmed to only alert me of things you want her to alert me about while you’re on your own floor, and it just seems—smart. It’s a smart move. And, like May said, it’s just for the school year, like a normal dorm. Harley moves back upstairs and Peter goes back to Queens during the summer. Deal?”

Peter clutches Harley’s hand in both of his and _beams._ “Deal,” he says, while Harley dumbly nods along.

“Thank you,” Harley does eventually say, after—just him and Tony, sitting in the lab, fiddling with a random project that has no plan or goal or meaning, just something to do with his hands. Tony stops, looks over from where he had been updating some of Friday’s coding, and tilts his head slightly to the side, curious. Harley clears his throat, bunches his shoulders in a shrug. “For the—you know. The gift, for Peter and me. That was—that’s a lot, and you didn’t have to—just. Thanks, Dad. Seriously.”

Tony looks just as misty and dumbfounded as he always does when Harley calls him Dad, and then he grins, toothy and warm and loving, walks over to where Harley is sitting and hugs him to his chest like he’s an infant and not an eighteen year old boy that is definitely taller than him. “You don’t have to thank me,” Tony tells him, shakes his head and lets out a haggard sigh. “You’re growing up, Harley. Gotta leave the nest eventually, and I wanna make sure you feel ready when you do. Baby steps, right? First this, moving a few floors down, and then, one day, your own place, an apartment, or a house. It’s fucking baffling to think about, and maybe it’s ‘cause I’ve only known you since you were twelve, you’ve only actually been living her since you were fifteen, but it just—feels too fast for you to be grown up.”

Harley laughs, presses his cheek to where Tony’s arc reactor used to be and feels his heart beat. “I’m not grown up,” he mumbles, closes his eyes and thinks of home and does not imagine Darcy Keener or his house in Rose Hill. Sees, instead, the tower and the city skyline and Tony Stark smiling at him.

“You’re more grown than you think,” Tony assures, though he presses a kiss to Harley’s forehead like he’s tucking a child into bed and promising to fight off all of the nightmares.

At the end of August, with the start of the school year less than a week away, they move onto their own floor—Harley, just boxing up the essentials and taking it down with him in the elevator, and Peter, with the help of Happy and a larger vehicle with a spacious trunk, lugging his own stuff that he doesn’t want to have to go to Queens to get up to what is, essentially, an apartment for them to share. It’s furnished, of course, but not with brand new stuff—nothing too pricey, like Tony probably wanted, but, rather, pretty damn good Craigslist finds that make the place feel lived in and homey within hours of putting it all together. May looks close to crying when she bids them goodnight, kisses Peter on the cheek and lets out a shaky breath and tells them both that she’s so proud of how far they’ve come, and Peter looks a little heartbroken to see her leave, like it’s just hitting him that—this is really happening.

Harley’s only parent is just upstairs, but Peter’s last family member is now a half hour away, maybe twenty minutes if the traffic is good, a minimum of ten if he swings there. He looks torn, staring at the elevator for a long moment after it closes, as if debating calling her back up and undoing all of their unpacking in order to go back to Queens with her, to where he knows, to his home.

This is one of the moments where Peter’s walls crack, and Harley knows that, in their relationship, there’s a lot of—reassurances, a lot of placing boundaries and carefully building comfort and never pushing the other, and there’s a lot of just looking at one another and knowing, somehow, whatever storm is brewing in the other’s brain. It’s knowing what best to do to provide comfort and safety and a sense of ease. It’s Peter, sniffing once, swiping his hand beneath his nose and clenching his jaw and saying, “I’m, uh—I think I’m gonna go patrol for a little bit, so I’ll just—I’ll be back in a few hours—”

And it’s Harley, reaching out without thinking—not needing to think, anymore, not like he used to think about everything—and grabbing Peter gently by the wrist when he tries to walk by. Peter freezes, shoulders going tense, and then, slowly, looks up and meets Harley’s gaze, eyes reflecting all the fear that he won’t voice, all the doubts he always forces on himself, all the expectations that are impossible to meet, and he looks at Harley, seems to see the way that Harley only looks at him with love and understanding, and then just—crumbles, a little bit. Doesn’t start to cry, but comes close to it, ducks his head and shuffles forward and tucks himself into Harley’s embrace, sinks into him with a shaky sigh as Harley holds him tight and tells him, “Or, maybe, we could just watch a movie instead…?”

“Yeah,” Peter murmurs, presses his nose to Harley’s neck and just _breathes._ “Okay. That works, too.”

College starts off as a terrifying concept looming ahead, a future obstacle to deal with later. It starts with a casual conversation in class, to a meeting with the counselor about what schools he wants to go to, to Ned talking about working on his essay for his application to MIT. It goes from something far away and perceptively unachievable to their first day at ESU, having—classes, college classes, at an actual university, and it feels—overwhelming, really, as Harley stands outside the building with his first of three classes he has scheduled for Tuesday’s, and he questions if he’ll really be able to go inside. The swirling, head spinning mixture of sensations crawl up his spine and overtake him, and he feels his fingers twitch, thinks that—maybe, in a way, none of this has felt as real as it does right now. Something about this moment just seems so much more clear and—vivid, crisp, almost. While nothing else has felt _un_ real, really, this is just… real, times ten. Which is not the type of wording he would usually use, more often than not would try to put it somewhat more elegantly, easier to understand, but he can’t really piece together the more comprehensive version of whatever the hell is going on in his head.

It felt, at one point, like an impossibly far away goal, and now it’s here, and he feels frozen, stuck to the ground and unable to move, stands there until there’s a brush of fingers against his side and Peter steps into his vision, bright eyed and beautiful beyond belief, and—he nearly forgot that they have most of the same classes, because first years are often just—extended high school, all the prerequisites that are needed for more specific classes down the line, so it wasn’t hard, getting almost the same schedule, save for Friday, where Peter has a morning class and Harley’s is in the afternoon. “Ready to go in?” Peter asks him, that tinge of concern audible but not overwhelming, and Harley sinks his teeth into his lower lip and takes a deep breath that aches in his chest and nods because—he is. Ready, for this, for—maybe, for the future. For the next step and the next moment and the next—everything. Anything. It’s so much more real now, and he’s ready to face it, to confront it, to live through it and survive it and be _happy_ with it.

He’s ready for anything he could ever want. And he wants— _so_ much. So much of so many things, so many things that he spent so long not allowing himself to have, not allowing himself to even think about or consider and—he’s grown, now. Not all the way, not even close, but he’s so much more now than he was when he ran away to New York at fifteen, terrified and traumatized and just wanting to be safe. He has safe, now—he is safe, has been for a while. He’s grown to let himself want, to even let himself act on most of those wants, which is clear in the fact that he does not shy away from affection anymore, not even on the bad days, seeks out hugs and _loves_ kissing his boyfriend more than he thought would be possible.

The shift from carefully approaching more to being ready and willing and _excited_ to dive right in must be a bit too on the sudden side, because they’re kissing again and Peter pulls away to calm down a bit and he goes wide in the eyes with shock when Harley just—leans in again and keeps kissing him, causing Peter to almost lurch back in surprise, lips parted around a heavy breath as he looks between Harley’s eyes with furrowed brows, searching for—something, finds none of it, and asks, “You want to keep going?”

Harley nervously wets his lips, nods once, a bit quick and curt, and says, “Yeah. If you—if you want to.”

“Are you sure?” Peter questions, and he sounds—not scared, but so, so cautious, looking at Harley with so much sincerity in his gaze that it’s almost too much to look at. “If you’re not ready—”

“I am,” Harley interrupts, voice firm and unwavering and so, so sure. He brushes some of Peter’s hair back from his forehead and leans in to nudge their noses together and tells him, “I love you, and I want—I want this. All of this. All of— _you,_ y’know? Or, as much as you wanna give. I’m—I’m _definitely_ ready.”

No looking away, not even blinking. Peter stares back at him for a long moment, bites down on his lower lip and lets out an uneven sort of breath, then says, “If you—change your mind, or want to stop—”

Harley nods once, his decision set. “I know.” His gaze flickers down and looks at Peter’s mouth and he thinks that the way that it looks _wet_ from how long they were kissing might be doing something to him because he feels it when his stomach swoops and he has the swallow roughly and force himself to look back up and meet Peter’s eyes again before quietly asking, “Can we…?”

Peter breathes out a little, “Yeah,” before leaning back into Harley’s space and pressing their lips together, sealing them in a kiss that feel molten and hot and Peter doesn’t break the kiss as he slowly rolls onto the back, uses a gentle grip to move Harley with him, over him, on top of him, until Harley is kneeling over him, back hunched and movements uncertain. Peter chuckles into the kiss when Harley brings up one hand to cradle his face in his palm, the other pressing into the mattress to keep his balance, aids in maneuvering him just so, until Harley goes from kneeling over him to straddling him, knees pressed into the duvet, thighs bracketing Peter’s hips, nestles his weight down and freezes, for a moment, when Peter makes the slightest of pleased sounds.

There’s not a manual, no instructions that tell Harley what he’s supposed to do next, but Peter knows this, of course he knows, lets out a hum and settles his hands on Harley’s waist and tilts his head the slightest bit to make the kiss deeper and harder and—Harley feels a shiver run up his spine when Peter’s mouth leaves his suddenly, but he doesn’t pull away, just moves his lips over to press a kiss to the underside of Harley’s jaw, then another, and a third, a fourth, trails these kisses across Harley’s jawline, behind his ear and then down, further, until he’s kissing at Harley’s neck. At first, it’s more just a brush of lips against skin, like he’s introducing Harley to the idea of being kissed there, but then he gets more earnest in his actions and it’s—really nice, actually, and Harley finds himself tilting his head without even meaning to just to give Peter that little bit of easier access, sighs out in content and closes his eyes.

And then Peter scrapes his teeth, just lightly, over Harley’s pulse, and his heart jumps as a noise that he’s never heard himself make before climbs out of his throat, clamps a hand down on Peter’s shoulder and holds into him like a lifeline, breathing now just the slightest bit heavier than before.

“Did you like that?” Peter asks, voice quiet and curious where he speaks so close to Harley’s skin.

Harley swallows the lump in his throat and tells him, “Yeah, that was—yeah. Yeah.”

He quickly finds that saying he likes something is key to having it happen again, because as soon as those words are out of his mouth, Peter is latching onto his throat again, kissing and licking and _biting_ with a newer sense of vigor, twists his fingers into the material of Harley’s sweatshirt and seems to tog on it when Harley makes that noise again, the breathless little sound that sounds loud in the otherwise quiet room, and he doesn’t—he doesn’t think he’s moaning, doesn’t think the noise really qualifies as that, but it’s on the way to being there and Peter maps out his skin. He scrapes teeth where he kisses and sends shivers running up and down Harley’s spine and then, on the juncture where neck meets shoulder, he presses a firm kiss and then he just—he _sinks_ his teeth into soft skin, not hard enough to really hurt or break skin or anything like that, but enough that Harley yelps and then—

That, the sound he makes now, is a moan, sort of high in his throat and tinged with a little bit of need.

Peter drops his forehead to Harley’s shoulder and groans. “Fuck, you sound so—wow. Wow.”

“I really—” Harley stops for a second, takes in a sharp breath and lets it out slowly, settles his weight more firmly against Peter and then finishes with, “I _really_ liked that. That was—I liked it.”

“Okay,” Peter murmurs, curls his arms around Harley’s waist and hold him a bit closer and seems to take a short moment to collect himself before lifting his head from Harley’s shoulder, their gazes meeting as Peter wets his lower lip and starts to say, “I think—and if I’m wrong and you want to do something different or try—another thing, or—but I think you should set the pace, you know? So, that way if you want to stop, you can just stop, or if you want to—slow down, speed up, whatever, then—y’know?”

Harley nods, feeling a bit breathless, brows furrowing together. “How should I—?”

Peter unwinds his arms from Harley’s waist and settles his hands on his hips instead. “Like this,” he says quietly, guides Harley in a simple movement, moves his hips back a bit and then forward in a rolling motion that— _oh,_ that provides _friction,_ sends a little jolt of pleasure through his body and he didn’t even really realize that he was—that he _is_ —turned on like this, had been so focused on the way Peter was kissing his neck to even notice the bodily reaction itself, but now that he’s aware of it, it’s at the forefront of his mind. He lets Peter guide him a few more times, mostly just until he really gets the angle right, and then he shifts his weight on his own, back, and then forward, the action punching a sound from the center of Harley’s chest as Peter grips onto Harley’s waist and pushes up into the contact, making it—better, somehow, definitely, _definitely_ better, and Harley doesn’t know when he closes his eyes but he knows they snap back open when Peter goes back to nipping at his neck again and he—he grinds down into Peter’s lap without properly thinking about it or meaning to, but it makes a noise rumble from the back of Peter’s throat and tickle against Harley’s skin. Beneath every movement, every hip roll and shift of weight, Harley can feel Peter pressing into him, the outline of his cock insistent and enticing and—maybe later, maybe when this is something Harley is more used to, when it isn’t his first time doing something like this, he’ll want to reach for it, see it and touch it and—maybe, might even taste it—but for now he’ll just think about it as he rolls down into it and feels the way they line up perfectly, synchronized sounds of pleasure pushing past parted lips at the shock of electricity that zaps the both of them.

 _“Oh,”_ Harley gasps, when Peter’s arms wind around his waist again and it makes it easier to get even closer and grind down even harder and—the angle, the angle is _perfect_ like this and he’s—speeding up, moving faster, more desperately, and Peter is pressing his lips to Harley’s ear and murmuring the softest things he’s ever heard, little reassurances and encouragements and—some more not so sweet stuff, too, like how he’s dreamed about this and gotten off thinking about this and he loves Harley, loves him, loves to see him feel good and _make_ him feel good and then he bites at Harley’s earlobe, pulls at it slightly with his teeth and that’s—really good, in a way Harley didn’t know was possible, just adds to it all until he’s digging nails into Peter’s shoulders and just rocking back and forth with a sense of urgency.

It feels like fire—like tendrils of flames licking up and down his spine, an overall sense of warmth coming from within and spreading across his skin in a full body blush, his hands trembling in a wonderful way, for wonderful reasons, as he clutches Peter’s forearm and floats in it for a moment, just—feels it, all of it, lets it wash over him with a sense of pleasure that he’s literally _never_ felt before right now. There’s a tingle at the base of his spine and a sense of breathlessness that makes him pant into the curve of Peter’s neck and can’t seem to recall a single reason why he waited so long for this, waited, what feels like forever, to feel this good, to make _Peter_ feel this good—to hear his breath hitch and can see and feel as he still restrains himself, rips a hand away from Harley to curl fingers into the blanket beneath them instead, twitches his hips up and then really moves into the next roll of friction between them, and it’s hard to really—hard to pinpoint what he’s enjoying more, really. How it feels, how he feels, or—Peter, and the way Peter is moving, the noises Peter is making, the look in his eyes when Harley manages, somehow, to pull back enough to meet gazes. Peter’s lips are parted and his breathing is heavy and he looks back at Harley with a concoction of emotions flickering across his features.

He looks like sin, and that—that used to be a word worse than any swear that Harley could conjure up in his mind. That used to be spat at him in the halls at school, sneered at him in the streets of Rose Hill, spoken down at him with a condescending tone in the back of a church when all Harley wanted to do was go home and pretend he never tried to come out to his mother in the first place. Sin was—still is, maybe, in a way—something to run away from, to avoid like the plague, to never approach. But love was called a sin, and Harley thought that—thought that it didn’t sound right. The way he felt was called a sin, and he, fifteen and young and fearful and only ever trying to do his best, was called an abomination by a man who claimed to speak for God and taught to hate himself, taught to fear the touch of any male, and it felt wrong. Even at the time, he knew, logically, that it wasn’t okay. That it wasn’t him that was the problem, but the people around him—the town, the residents, their beliefs. But he was fifteen and sin made him flinch in fear because he was worried God may strike him down for even _thinking_ of something sinful.

But now, Peter Parker looks like _sin,_ lips glistening with saliva and features dusted with pink, absolutely flushed, his chest rising and falling just the slightest bit more than usual, his breath fanning hot across Harley’s skin as they sit nose to nose, hair a bit of a mess, though it often already is, but this is different than that—it’s mussed up by the pillows he had been resting against, tangled from their movements and a bit frizzy at the ends because of the static build up of shifting against the pillowcase. There’s nothing pure or innocent about him, his eyes burning with lust, his words dripping with want, and instead of feeling dread, instead of fear or self-hatred or the twist of a dagger in his gut, Harley just feels alight with the very fire burning in Peter’s eyes, feel that same want flowing through his veins.

Harley is a sinner—and so what if he is? He’d rather be happy in his sin than be terrified in his faith.

If being here, feeling himself fall apart under the eyes of the boy his loves and seeing the way that Peter’s features twist and crumple in ecstasy when he topples over the edge and cries out Harley’s name in a tone that Harley’s never heard before—if this is what people call wrong, then fine. Harley is wrong. He is a sinner and he is an abomination and that’s fine. He’s more than okay with that.

(After, later—when they’ve caught their breath and changed into clean clothes and put on a movie to watch in the living room, when they’re curled into one another and breathing the same air and Harley feels more relaxed and at ease than he thinks he’s ever been before—that’s when Peter brushes fingers through the hair at the nape of Harley’s neck and tells him, “It looks good on you.”

Harley blinks, a bit shocked, and looks over at Peter in confusion. “What?”

“Being—this,” Peter says, waving his other hand vaguely to gesture towards Harley. “Happier, you know? And comfortable. You were—I mean, I still _adored_ you when we met, but you were so closed off back then, you know? It was like you were scared of being too close to me, and now—now you’re just yourself and you don’t really try to hide it or run away from what you want. Like… I don’t know if this makes any sense, but, just—being happy looks good on you. It looks _really_ good on you.”

“I wasn’t… _not_ happy,” Harley tries to say, though—no, he was not happy, not back then. He relied on a poem written by someone else to try to define himself, cried to himself and never slept and felt dizzy with panic when Peter sat too close to him, like he was going to burst into flames and wake up in Hell.

Peter gives him a little smile, not disbelieving or harsh, but knowing. He always knows. “Well, you’re happier, alright? And it suits you, being happy like this.”

“Are you trying to flirt with me?” Harley asks, partially joking, but—confused, still. Unsure about what this is about. “We’re already dating and you literally just took my virginity, like, thirty minutes ago. You don’t have to flirt with me anymore. I’m already stupidly in love with you.”

It makes Peter laugh, that twinkling, chiming sound that Harley has literally written sonnets about. The movie is still playing but neither of them are even glancing at the TV. “Pretty sure I can still flirt with you even when we’re dating,” Peter says, with a lopsided grin that has the tip of his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth in a boyish sort of way. “And—no, I’m not flirting. I’m being serious! It’s just, like… it’s really cool to see how far you’ve come, you know? That’s all it is. I’m just—really happy to see you happy, and, like, pretty fucking proud of you, too, for coming so far.”

Harley parts his lip, falters—thinks, for a moment, and asks, “Where is this coming from?”

“I just don’t think I’ve really told you,” Peter replies. “Thought that I probably should.”

“Well—” Harley hooks their ankles and curls into Peter until their lines are blurred, pulls a blanket off the back of the sofa and drapes it over them, and then shrugs. “I’m proud of you, too.”

Peter rests his head on Harley’s shoulder, looks back at the TV with a hum. “You should be. I got stabbed on patrol last night and I didn’t even cry about it. Pretty sure that means everyone needs to be extra proud of me and my super self-control and my not so super pain tolerance.”

Harley lurches. “You were _stabbed—?!_ ”)

| | | | |

He writes a poem—full in length, the first draft written in a thoughtless haze, read over by more clear eyes a few days later and—and it holds that feeling. The same, only, also, _not_ the same, as what he felt when he had been thirteen years old and he had found that poem online, the way it swelled in his chest and nearly suffocated him when he read the first part in the middle school bathroom with a busted lip and tears in his eyes. Similar to how queasy he felt when he read the second part shortly after running away to New York and trusting Tony Stark not to send him back home, and the third part—in the bathroom, his knees still aching from how hard he fell to the floor, the taste of bile and stomach acid on the back of his tongue. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh, all read at the same time and suddenly—the poem didn’t seem to fit him anymore. It was wrong. The feeling turned into frustration.

Writing stemmed from the want to have that feeling again, that one poem, that one string of words that he could look at and think— _this is my soul staring back at me, and everybody else can see it, too._

It takes years of writing in his free times, years of random late nights where he brain feels like it’s too full of too many things and making himself just jot it down until his head doesn’t ache so badly anymore. By the time he writes the first draft, he’s given up on actually making it.

The second draft feels wrong—forced, somehow. The third draft is too short, the fourth draft too long. It seems, somehow, like the perfect poem was never meant to exist. Fifth attempt, and Harley stares at the words like he isn’t the one that just wrote them while something pings in his chest, even though it’s simple, and it almost seems—anticlimactic. There is nothing ground shaking or world altering about it.

But it’s snug against his skin. It fits him better than his favorite sweater ever could.

| | | | |

**there was once a time that i feared the sky**

_a poem by harley keener_

beyond the clouds, there is a universe.

this universe is endless and void, and there is not a map made that can navigate the stars. the stars are not reliable, and they will not lead you home. you will shoot for the moon and land among everyone else who did not manage to aim it right, and that is where you will stay.

do not shoot for the moon. no one makes it there—and anyone who might would not want to stay. the moon is much too far away. the moon was never supposed to be a home.

you do not know where home is.

it isn’t above you—that is the only sure thing you can say. home is not with the clouds, is not tucked behind a distant planet and protected by the blazing sun. home is grown from the roots of the earth and carefully coaxed into stability. it is not given to you, it is earned, fought for, built with unsteady hands. home is a twist of roses forming an arching entryway and the prick of the thorn against your thumb.

home is not among the stars and you do not belong in the sky.

but it is nice to look at—from the safety of your hand made home, tucked into the soil and feeling the rotation of the earth. you can see the stars and you can observe the moon. there is nothing up there other than the rest of the universe and that used to seem terrifying.

it doesn’t scare you anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i never actually had a plan for how to end this, and i think, for something that was pulled out of my ass, it concludes quite nicely.


End file.
